


I sung of chaos

by Sadhippie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cersei lannister deserved better, Darkish Sansa Stark, F/M, Jon Snow Still Knows Nothing, Motherhood, Ned critical, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Sansa Stark-centric, YMBQ, not Dany friendly, post season 8 with some changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-16 08:51:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 76,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21505186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadhippie/pseuds/Sadhippie
Summary: The dragon is dead, yet there are golden beasts not so easily killed.The Lion Queen gives her little cub to a younger and more beautiful one.Sansa Stark carries on.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister & Sansa Stark, Jon Snow & Arya Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 458
Kudos: 788





	1. Chaos

It had been 3 moons since Jon had killed the last Targaryen. 2 moons since he had been sent to the wall for aiding in the Massacre of Kingslanding. 1 moon since Arya left towards one last, final adventure, before coming home again. And here she was, in the halls of Riverrun, where her brother once stood, where her mother grew up, deciding on the fate of Westeros.

Kingslanding was nothing more than ash and pieces of stone upon the floor. Impossible to rebuild they had been assured. And more than that, the people, the few that remained were getting ill, coughing their lungs out, unable to breathe. New arrangements were made. Riverrun would be the seat of the crown until Harrenhall was prepared. It belonged to Sansa, in truth, as Petyr’s heir, but she relinquished it to her brother, as a gesture of goodwill from the Queen in the North to the King in the South. Harrenhall was haunted, everyone said so, noble to pauper, young to old, and Sansa tended to agree. Nevertheless, Bran didn’t seem to mind, and she knew better than to doubt him.

They were all getting impatient. For more than 2 moons they had shared close quarters. There were promises to be made, treaties to be signed. Alliances to be kept and wars to avoid. And how they all wanted to avoid them. Leyton Hightower was an old man, mostly blind, who wanted nothing more than go back to his tower and never feel the sunlight again, but he was reasonable, didn’t speak in anger and loved nothing less than war. Robyn was much more agreeable now that he was no longer a child, and though it was truly her dear Lord Royce that made the decisions on his behave, the boy had a great devotion to her and agreed with everything she said, Sansa found it sweet. Eldon Estermont was chosen as the Lord of the Stormlands by his peers, they might have accepted Stannis’ bastard, without a doubt Renly’s, but not Robert’s illiterate bastard raised up by a dragon. Gendry hadn’t been bothered with their choice, he was a blacksmith and he enjoyed being one. Dorne had declared their independence as well and Arianne Martell took her rightful place as queen, she was quick-witted and sharp, and they shared much of the same opinions on the subjects that mattered. Her uncle Edmure had been made very demure by his time in captivity, but his concern for his people was unshakeable and she was confident he would be a just lord to the Riverlands. Addam Marbrand, once loyal bannermen and commander of Tywin Lannister held the regency of the West, while its future was being decided.

“Just drag her by her hair as soon as the child is out and put her head on a chopping block, I say,” Lord Estermont, receiving enthusiastic agreement by his bannerman, while his wife’s face held no such joy by the suggestion.

“While we have all been made brutal by war, my lord, let us not begin these peaceful times by dragging a woman still bleeding from the birthing bed on to her execution,” Sansa told the man.

“I for one am appalled by the suggestion, are we savages now, my lord?” Lord Marbrand raged, with support from the westerlanders. They held no love for Cersei Lannister, it was true, but she had been their Queen, a true Lannister that brought pride to the West for many a year and they would not let one of their own disgraced in such a way. Not when it would be remembered for history, not when it would seem they were too weak to put a stop to it.

“If you’re in such a hurry to kill her, Lord Estermont, dragging a bleeding woman and making a sport of her death for the beggars on the street to cheer for. I suggest you do it yourself. Let you be the one remembered for killing a woman who has yet to hold her child, if you hold no shame for it,” Arianne suggested bluntly, leaving the old man red in the face and at a loss for words.

They had found her in the cells once the unsullied left for Naath. Forgotten in the midst of all the madness that had followed. They had just recovered her from the ruble where she was found, still breathing, miraculously unharmed, just unconscious from the fall. They were preparing to show her to their most powerful Dragon Queen for slaughter when they found her dead and Jon holding the blade. And that was how the _once_ most powerful woman in all of Westeros was left forgotten in a cell, pregnant and unable to get out. By that time Tyrion had been tried and executed for his crimes, a Lannister heir was most needed and killing a pregnant woman would not do. No matter how much they all hated her.

Some of these most noble of lords had wanted to keep her in a cell until the birth, humiliate her some more for their enjoyment, it was her uncle Edmure’s voice that had been the loudest. He, that had been on a cell for so long, by both Frey and Lannister hand that refused to impose such a punishment on a pregnant woman. Roslyn’s eyes had borne so much love for him in that moment that Sansa couldn’t will herself to forget it. It had all led up to this now. Cersei Lannister in a chamber below, awaiting the birth of her child, awaiting her sentence for death.

“Master Tarly, how long, do you say, it takes a woman to heal from childbirth?” Bran asked him, tough she was quite sure he didn’t need the maester to respond.

“Well, I would say it varies, but – but it would probably take -” Sansa lost her concentration while he stammered on.

Samwell Tarly was a bright man without a doubt, but his stay in the Citadel had been cut much too short and due to the great shortage of maesters on account to the wars, they had little more option than to resign to his expertise on childbirth. Sansa would have preferred to ask Gilly. And there was the other matter - she could still remember how upset he had been with Jon’s sentence, how he had judged her for only being able to save him from execution. Sansa pitied him. Sansa envied him.

“Very well, then it seems there is no reason to discuss this matter at this moment. We will reconvene after the birth.” Most of the room signed in exasperation. “Rest assured my lords, it won’t take much long,” he turned to her as he said it, her ominous brother.

It truly didn’t take long after the doors of the council room were open for a maid to come to her. “ _She’s asking for you, Your Grace_ ,” she whispered in her ear.

Sansa was out of her chair immediately and headed towards her chambers.

It had been something that took her by surprise in the beginning. She had imagined all the scenarios, all the outcomes of the game. She had seen Daenerys bloodthirstiness. She had seen the cruelty behind the mask of liberation. She had seen Tyrion’s blind spot, his lost brilliance. She had seen Jon’s mistakes, all of them. Yet she had not imagined this. Hadn’t prepared for Cersei’s survival, for her pregnancy, for the emotions that would blind her.

In the beginning, she had seemed like caged animal, trashing and raging against the maids that would bring her food, against the walls that kept her in place. She would scream until her throat was raw. She had nothing to trade with, no piece of the game with which she could plot. Her brothers were dead. Her throne destroyed and she was alone. Sansa went to her then. Armored herself in a dress that had belonged to her mother, a tightfitting blue kirtle with a deep red open surcoat over it that trailed to the ground, something Cersei might have worn in her youth. Cersei had looked at her like if she was prey then. Her hair had been almost past her shoulders, but tangled and uncared for. She had looked angry and defeated. How she must have wanted to kill her then, her fingernails red with dried blood from scratching the walls, her palms still wounded from the broken glass of the cups she had smashed before they took the shards away and changed them to wooden ones.

Sansa had sent for the maids after she was sure she wouldn’t pounce, four scared girls than entered with a tub and hot water, ran away as soon as everything was set and ready. Cersei had only looked at her with a raised brow.

_“Are you going to bathe me Sansa Stark? Is everyone else so scared that they would send you?” she had wondered, her head tilted to the side, eyes sunken by hunger._

_“Do you need me to?” Sansa asked earnestly, as she sat on a stool near the tub. She looked very thin, much too thin for someone so far along with child. She understood why, though. Had she been the one with child, vultures waiting for her to birth her before taking her away, she might have starved herself too._

_“I heard it all,” she told her, as she slowly slipped away from her shift and carefully neared the tub. “Everything you told your brother.” Sansa nodded, she had guessed that much. Their cells were very close to each other she found out later. “We are no different, you and I, are we?” she spoke more to herself than to her, but she nodded either way and when Cersei finally entered the tub and offered Sansa her arm, she carefully took it and started cleaning her._

Since then, they had reached some sort of peace. Cersei would ask for her in her time of confinement and she would go. It never truly crossed her mind to refuse her, she was lonely and so was Cersei. Sansa had spent so much of her childhood with this woman, when she had been nothing but golden, and bright and sharp, so sharp. Sansa still had wounds from her that would never heal. Yet here she was. Tending to her, while she awaited both life and death. She knew how ridiculous it was, how dangerous. The lion was chained – yes – but she still had her claws. Cersei was using her, she was sure of it, even if she could only imagine what for. Sansa was very careful, never spoke of the meetings upstairs, never spoke of the north. Mostly she let Cersei speak. She told her everything. Her childhood. Her father. Jaime. Robert. Sansa wondered if it was the first time, she had ever allowed herself to be known in this way. She had nothing to lose.

This woman had been her jailer once, as she was now hers. This was to be Sansa’s punishment, she knew. The gods themselves had crafted it upon the destruction of Kingslanding. She had been unable to prevent it, so they would have her relive her childhood, this time – herself - holding the chain and key. This guilt she would carry inside her long after Cersei’s body rotted in an unmarked grave. No matter what this woman had done to her family, she would always have to bear inside herself, what she had done to her.

"Little dove, _you’re here_ ," she said, _so_ proud of herself. She was plump and round now, her hands protectively holding her stomach. There was a jealousy inside Sansa she could not explain. Did her mother hold her like this? With such care? With such a fierce want. Her face was glowing like Sansa had rarely seen. Her hair was longer now, cared for and soft. Past her shoulders and she wore it simply twisted around her head.

Sansa rolled her eyes. "I take pity on a pregnant woman."

Cersei chuckled. "I don't believe you." Her smile was all teeth. Very pleased for someone who was sentenced for death.

"Then why would I be here, _my queen_?" She knew she was challenging a pregnant woman, it was beneath her, she knew. But it was Cersei. They didn’t often lie to each other now. It soothed something in her. To be able to be honest to someone who was only once an enemy. Someone who was on the making of becoming a ghost. Once, moons ago, she would have rather burn than call Daenerys "My queen", like Jon did, left and right, trying to appease the fire breathing woman. But with Cersei it seemed quite natural. In jest. Tender in a way. She didn't mind. She couldn’t.

"You care for me. It is only natural, I was a mother to you," she said in a sickeningly sweet tone, as she cradled her belly.

"In a tormented sort of way, " she conceded. Before reveling anything deeper. They liked to through knifes at one another and avoid the target. Skate around the wound yet making sure there was at least some pain.

She waved her hand. "Our little spats, however amusing they are, are not why I asked you here." She swallowed, with some effort, Sansa considered offering water, but she could tell she was about to hurt her, she had always been able to tell by her face. Her eyes would soften just slightly, and her voice would become cold. “Tell me dove, were you ever with child, from that _thing_?”

She had spent months expecting it. For her to mention it. For her to bring her to her knees with the knowledge of what had happened to her. Sansa was sure she knew. She would always skirt around the subject, enough so she would remember it, not enough so she would have to address it. She was saving it, for one final blow.

“I can’t say.” The thing hadn’t even been dead, when she had gathered enough tansy to kill a living child and shoved it down her own throat. She could have died, she knew, but better to be dead than let him take one more thing from her. She bled for weeks and yet she pushed through, she had been through worse pain. She knew she could endure. “Maybe.”

“I told you, once, you would learn to love your children, even if you couldn’t love your husband. And maybe, for some, that is true.” She shrugged. “If the blow isn’t so heavy, if the task isn’t so great.” She sighed. “I did bore a child from my husband and I suppose I did love it, for however little he lived. But how it disgusted me to bear it. How I wanted to scrub myself raw. Scratch every inch of my skin to take the feeling away. They tell you that when you bear the child, it is the only moment that it is truly yours, not your husband’s, not until it has been dragged away from you, and you’re in a pool of your own blood and he comes in to claim it. If you hate your husband enough, if you’re sick from his smell alone – it is only a reminder, living in you, stretching your insides raw, that it isn’t yours at all – it’s all his. His child, your body, your pain. All his…” Her eyes lost focus, and she seemed to wander for a bit.

“So, you gave him no more children. They would just be yours, all yours,” Sansa completed her thoughts. She would see nothing of Robert in them, all Lannister, all hers.

Cersei looked back at her and nodded. “It must be hard, to see a part of me in yourself, my dove,” she almost sounded soft as she said it. “I wanted this child, you see,” she cradled her stomach. “A new beginning, a child I could… Alas, I have been dealt my cards.” She steadied herself for quite some time before finally speaking. "My little lioness is coming. I want _you_ to keep her."

Sansa thought she would ask for poison, so she would kill herself after the child was born, even while it was still inside her. She hadn’t considered an appeal for freedom, for a lion, even a sheared one, still has its pride. Maybe for the same reason she hadn’t considered this.

“My children never had a father, but they always had a mother, I can’t -” She shook her head vehemently. “- I can’t leave her alone, you see, not like…” She refused to say any of their names now, sometimes, on a good day, she would speak of Myrcella. But she didn’t have many. "Mothers are different that fathers. You know that to be true. I will not let my child be without a mother. _I will not_. She'll need someone who would understand. She'll need someone who does not spit my name in the wind as if a curse. There are few people like that in the world. It _will_ be you." She took her hand then, squeezed it with strength. "You have to swear. On your own mother. On me and my ghost, you must swear. You _must_."

Sansa took a deep breath and released her hands from her grasp. “I never considered you mad until right this moment. You know _I cannot_. I will not plunge this country into another civil war just to keep your child, on a whim. I will not,” she assured her. The north had to come before her conscience.

“Who would dare fight you?!” she growled. “The Queen in the North. You, who survived every beast on this land. Who has waded through blood and gore and has conquered half the realm. The Vale wouldn’t rise against you. Neither would the Riverlands.” She fisted her hands on her skirts. “If I say she is yours to raise and you say it so, who can contest? The westerlanders will respect my wish as the daughter of Tywin Lannister and they would respect you. With your northern food and what you could do for them, they would know it to be the only chance to recover from the wars. Who will lead them? That Marbrand soldier?" She snorted. "They would accept you. Even if they huffed and puffed, they would rather a Lannister raised by a wolf and Lannister widow as her warden, half a world away, than any other man who can only make himself useful during a war. You'll see."

She was desperate, Sansa could tell. Yet she was unconvinced. It wasn't only a mad thought of a grieving woman in fear for her child, she saw it as the only way. But Sansa had a country to think about, hungry people depending on her, children whose parents had been killed by Lannister orders. Lords that wanted nothing more than Cersei’s blood.

“ _I will not._ ”

Cersei stepped back and straightened her spine. It was a reminder of the queen she had been. How quickly she readied herself for war.

“Very well. Then I’ll tell them. Whoever listens will know who _he_ is.” A _Targaryen_. “They might not believe me, but you know how rumors go. They will call for his head, you'll have no choice but to wage the war you so wish to avoid."

Sansa laughed then. Loud and clear. Cersei had been so clever once, now she made all the wrong threats and Sansa was a girl no more.

"You think I would wage a war for _him_? Him, who allowed a whole city to turn to ash. Who betrayed both family and country for a dragon? A king and man grown that couldn’t see a tyrant when she was pointed out to him? You think I will spill my people's blood for him, whoever’s left? A mindless war to spare _my_ heart." She shook her head slowly. "I love him. I am not blinded by him,” she told her, very carefully. “Jaime never stood in front of Robert's blows and you punished him, yet you think I will wage a war for the man that had to be convinced to take back my home from the man who cut me? _Do not mistake me._ " She was not the girl who though love could save her. That honor could save anyone from a knife in the back. She couldn’t trade her people for her heart.

Cersei took a deep breath. Smoothed down the mangled fabric of her dress. "So, this is who you become. This is who you choose to be. You think this will protect you from me?” she wondered, head tilted to the side, eyebrow raised. “That keeping her away from you will keep my ghost far, once I'm gone. I am _in_ you. I will always be." _I kept you alive_ , she whispered in her mind.

"You are not a fool. You know what will happen to this child, if she is to be raised by Marbrand. You know what she will suffer. So, since you aren't a fool, you can only be cruel. _These are the choices we make_ , us queens, aren't they, Sansa? I knew what my son did to you, and I did not save you. That makes me cruel, that makes me heartless. You will be _no less that I_."

 _Once a man knows true power, he will not let himself lose it, by any means,_ she knew what could happen, all the things could happen _._ The cards had been dealt. The true threat had emerged, hadn't it. Who she was would be decided on this one choice. On this Lannister babe. A lion raised by a Stark. A cycle of cruelty that must know an end.

Who could stop her? Most of the food in Westeros was held by Dorne and the North. They controlled Westeros. Only Arianne could stop her in truth. Would she? The west had no more gold, Cersei herself had assured her, seeds she had planted in her to cement her cause, no doubt. The true lions were both fading and dead. It would be only a child. Arianne would perhaps think she would be punishing the babe. Or trying to take control over more land. Would she care?

Sansa raised a brow. "Don't you fear me? What I could do, to a child of Cersei Lannister?"

"No," she said it with such certainty it made her lose her breath. "I know you. I know you better than anyone alive. I know who you were, I know who you became. I know of the ways of your heart, Sansa Stark. I only fear what you would not do. So, tell me. Pass the sentence and swing the sword. Tell me if I must keep this child until it rots inside me." 

Sansa sighed, pinched the top of her nose and made her choice.


	2. Peacekeeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The misery of queens was what they had to endure – alone.

It didn’t take long at all. From the moment Sansa said _yes_ , to there being a red bundle in her arms, very quietly nesting against her chest, ordered there by Cersei herself, that was now resting between sheets. She had been in labor ever since she had called for her. Sansa felt like a fool for not recognizing her shortness of breath for what it was. Her desperation for true pain.

The head-midwife had placed a dark wool quilt so the blood couldn’t be seen. For she hadn’t stopped bleeding heavily long after she was supposed to. Everyone in the room had no doubt on what would happen. She had nothing to live for, it was a mercy to let her go now. Roslyn herself had given the order, she had arrived with the midwives and when the future of the once Queen was clear, she had exchanged a look with Sansa and right there her future had been decided. On her birthing chambers, by women who did not wish to make a spectacle of her death. And it seemed right. It seemed fair. And so, they waited.

“She’s beautiful, don’t you want to hold her?” Sansa asked softly, sitting by her bedside, ignoring the scent of blood.

She grimaced and shook her head. “I can’t, my dove.” She swallowed hard and grabbed her hand forcefully. “ _You_ ’re her mother now. She’ll be no one else’s but _ours_ , you swore.” She didn’t let go of her until Sansa nodded solemnly. “A younger and more beautiful queen,” she laughed weakly for a long time while staring her down, from her deathbed.

Sansa couldn’t understand. Cersei had lost so much blood, she seemed delirious. She seemed in pain and frantic for it to end. She laughed until there were tears staining her eyes, running down her cheeks and Sansa could only think about how she had no more rage for this woman. It had been burned out of her, through years and endless winters, memories that would never leave her and a babe in her arms.

“Come here,” she demanded. Sansa leaned forward and Cersei took her unsteady hands to Sansa’s face and held them there, shocking them both with her tenderness. “Your crown has been bought with skill and paid for in heartbreak and blood, now you _must_ wear it.” She gave her a feeble smile, as her hands fell from her face.

The misery of queens was what they had to endure – _alone_.

And so, Sansa took her hand and they stayed there for a long time, staring into each other’s eyes, green against blue, death against life and all the other things that separate them, that always had and always would. Yet Cersei looked at her so gently, more than she ever had, and she let her hold her so willingly.

And there they stood, until Cersei grew pale and her eyes didn’t open again. Lady Roslyn came and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, when it was time.

“The babe has to be fed, Sansa. And they will want to see if she’s truly dead.” Sansa nodded, took one last look at the dead woman – some might say the rightful queen – no gold and no jewels, all her might gone, yet she would go down in history, the _last_ ruler to have sat upon the Iron Throne, the _first_ Queen.

She let her lead her away, the babe safely tucked in her arms.

They arrived at the Lady of Riverrun’s chambers. Roslyn sent the maid that was taking care of little Minisa away and undid the back of her dress. Sansa took some time to understand but it all made sense. Most of Westeros was starving and the other half was ravaged by war. There couldn’t be many wet nurses. Roslyn had had a babe not so long ago, it was the only option they had. She was so very thankful in that moment, she could do little more than start to cry.

“That was a very kind thing that you did, Your Grace,” she told her softly, as she held the babe while it breastfed, “but they will fight you for her. Your own country might too. A girl is to be owned and ridden. They won’t see the purpose. They won’t care for your good intentions.”

She took a deep breath and reigned her emotions in. “I know, but I- I couldn’t. I can’t let this all have been for nothing. I can’t repeat the past. I won’t.” She couldn’t become Cersei. She wouldn’t let herself become one of the great lords of Westeros. She was a queen now, of her own people, of her own home, she had to make it mean something.

“How was she like?” Roslyn finally asked after a long silence, it drew her away from her tears. No one had ever asked her that. No one had ever bothered.

She considered it, for a moment. Roslyn had never spoken to Cersei. She had refused to speak to anyone but Sansa, to the others she only raged and screamed. A lion in a cage.

“I never met a more frightened woman. She saw treason everywhere, danger on every corner. What could happen to her, what already had. And she was right, mostly. She was right.” She was silent for a moment. “How cruel she was because of it,” she finally whispered, afraid her ghost might hear her.

“And yet, you cared for her,” Roslyn said, knowingly, while holding the babe’s hand between her fingers, mouth pursed in thought.

Sansa clenched her jaw. Roslyn was a kind woman. She had come from a brutal family, yet she was a good mother. A gentle soul. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

How does anyone confess their darkest secrets. How does one speak when she has been silent for most of her life. She had loved Jon, so much, had silenced herself to please him, like she had so many times before, for the men in her life. Had let herself be humiliated and second guessed, belittled and disrespected in her own halls by the man that had given it all away. But in truth, nothing had stunned her so much as when he had spoken of Cersei.

He hadn’t been the first. They didn’t call her Lady Lannister just because she had been married to the imp. They did it because, sometimes, only sometimes, she straightened her back like Cersei did. Raised her brow with just as much challenge. Arranged her hair in the right way, so they were reminded of her, and how they _feared_ it – what she could become.

And they didn’t even know her. Not really, no one knew the true lion of Lannister. They knew Robert Baratheon’s beautiful Queen, his humiliated wife, the woman who took her brother to bed. They knew the Queen mother, jealous of her daughter-in-law’s beauty and youth. They knew the sheared lion that had to walk the streets naked, the woman they had laughed at. They didn’t know the daughter of Tywin Lannister. The ambition she had, the power she could wield, the fears that moved her. They had no idea, not until she had burned down the Great Sept of Baelor for what they had done to her, for what they wanted to do to still. They didn’t know her like Sansa did, they didn’t fear her like she had ought to been feared. And Sansa was nothing like her

Still, how does one say, that sometimes – only sometimes – when she could barely remember her mother’s face, her voice, her touch, her clear blue eyes, that it’s was Cersei’s eyes that appeared to fill the hole in her memory. Her smirk, that replaced her mother’s kind smile. How does one speak of these things without losing themselves. How does one speak without giving it strength, without making it reality.

“Your Grace,” Roslyn called her from her thoughts, “Guilt is a feeling very hard to bear when one has to fight for survival. You did a good thing, a kind thing, don’t think more of it,” she said it so very softly.

She nodded slowly, took refuge in her words and prepared for her next fight.

“I would take the babe North,” she informed the room, leaving no room for doubts.

There was danger in this, she knew, as clear as day this would be taken as a threat. The whole room gasped and stammered. Lord Marbrand was going red with the strength it took him to keep quiet while his fellow lords whispered in his ear. Yet it was Arianne’s raised brow that concerned her the most.

Her brother considered her carefully for a moment. “I don’t see any problem,” he decreed, its simplicity irked her.

Lord Estermont snarled, “By what right, do you presume-”

“By the right bestowed upon me by her mother, who’s veracity can be proven by Lady Roslyn as well as the midwives who attended the birth,” she patiently explained.

Lord Tully jolted at the mention of his wife’s name and looked to her for approval, to which she gave a solemn nod to everyone’s view.

“It was decided in a previous council, that the child would be raised by _me_ ,” Lord Marbrand enunciated carefully, “as it’s regent.”

“Which will tell you, how surprised I was to receive this request by the former Queen, my lord.” She feigned confusion. “In truth I though you would be grateful. You, yourself, are not married, nor is your mother still among us. And for _so_ , so long, your military duties took you away from the matters of statecraft. Now that you reconnect yourself with those duties, raising a babe, a girl at that, would only be a distraction upon the burdens of ruling. We wouldn’t want the West to suffer, would we?” She gave him a small smile, that could, for some, be presumed as mocking, something that would make a man nervous, enough to make a mistake.

“Well - well, of course, the girl would be warded off-” he stammered on.

Sansa smiled, a true smile now.

“Who better to ward her than a Queen,” Lord Tully suggested candidly and _quickly_.

Lord Royce cleared his voice. “There are even some who would say that the Queen in the North _is_ the Lady of Casterly Rock, as the widow of the Lannister traitor,” he said unassumingly, provoking anxious whispers from some of the lords behind Lord Marbrand, and considerate glances towards her from the others.

Both the Vale and the Riverlands had much to gain from a Lannister heir raised by a Stark. Their alliances ran deep by the blood of her Tully mother, made deeper still by their continued support of one another. A victory for Sansa was a victory for them. No more war against the Riverlands by the West, ensured stability. By all means, an adopted daughter of Sansa Stark on the seat of Casterly Rock meant a surer ally then they could ever hope to achieve. They would keep faith with her.

Yet, men were prideful creatures, and a bruised ego made a dangerous man. Sansa would avoid that. “Lord Marbrand, why don’t you and the rest of the Western Lords speak amongst yourselves. I, of course, wouldn’t presume to know what would benefit the West. And perhaps we can later resume this conversation,” she offered.

Lord Marbrand looked towards Bran from approval, who gave them leave to go. He gave her a curt nod and left the room immediately, followed by the other lords.

The room was emptied quickly. Most of the lords went to lock themselves in chambers, carefully weighing their options and trying to understand what plans the Queen in the North had. Only Bran and she remained, facing one another.

“Am I making a mistake? Am I being foolish, brother?” She leaned back in her chair.

She had no doubt he knew. Of their meetings. Of their history. Of her confounding feelings and thoughts. Of every secret she hid and shame she buried.

“Time does change the loveliest of beauties. Yet a flower is still a flower even after she has been stepped on,” he mused.

“And I have been stepped on many times.” She hated riddles, yet she was far too used to her strange new brother.

He shrugged, his hands crossed above the table. “And yet, you grow.”

“ _Thorns_.”

“One can do both,” he guaranteed her.

“And won’t I get lost in between?” she asked him, in honest doubt. Between power and conscience. Temptation and duty. Between her crown and herself, her people and her family, if there was even a difference.

“Your bones were buried North.” _Lady_ had been buried north. “You’ll always find it.”

“And yours?” She leaned forward. “Do they point North or South, should the time come?” Her meaning was clear now.

“Mine were buried norther still. I know where I’m from, worry not, Sansa Stark. And we’ll always have Tully blood between us.” _Family,_ duty, honor.

She didn’t need to prepare for a war, there was some relief to it. Yet she knew better than not to fear a battle.

Arianne found her not much later in a hidden hallway. In all her dornish beauty, in all her dornish rage.

“I have indulged your _guilt_ for too long, Sansa Stark. I’ve closed my eyes to yours visits of the Lion Queen, because your remained objective during the council meetings. But if you keep this foolish idea of raising the girl, I will not support you against the Westerlands should they charge for a war,” she assured her in a low tone.

“They have no more gold, Arianne. The mines are dry, they can’t afford a war,” she tried to explain, her voice carefully low.

She raised a brow. "And you're sure of this? Enough to risk your people's lives on it?"

"I am. The west is unstable as it is. They're bickering lords without a Lannister to lead them. They don't like Marbrand, not enough. They won't go to war for his pride."

She snorted in disbelief. "And for her? To have their chance to control the Lady Lannister. I didn't take you for a fool."

"Then don't. They fear me, Arianne. I'm the winged wolf that killed King Joffrey with a spell. I'm the witch that got their queen to give me her child. If you don't trust that they won't want to wage war, trust that their people won't dare to pick up arms and there are not enough soldiers to force them."

Arianne considered it for a moment. "You better be right, Sansa Stark. For your sake alone," she told her, before disappearing back into another hallway.

He came to her in her chambers, in the security afforded to him by the night. If the purpose was to intimidate her, he would find himself severely disappointed.

"Lady Stark," he greeted her once he was allowed inside her rooms.

She smiled. She had been queen for such little time, the thought that it would vex her, not being treated by her new title amused her. She was not Daenerys Targaryen.

"Ser Addam, do make yourself comfortable."

He made way for one of the chairs in front of her and they both sat down.

"I believed it would be wiser for us to have this conversation alone, so as to not give the wrong impression to my fellow lords," he explained.

"Of course."

No one liked being seen bending, especially a man trying to secure his power. And Sansa was partial to being seen as a soft woman. Easily swayed by the will of others. It was good to be underestimated, it left people comfortable enough to make mistakes.

"Given the unfortunate matter of the babe being born a girl, the West would be _honored_ ," he muttered, "that our future Lady would be in your care, until the time comes," he acquiesced painfully, "but of course, we have terms. " Sansa edged him on. "You would have to make clear, that you have no pretension to Casterly Rock, as Tyrion Lannister's widow. To ensure there won't be any confusion." _Dissent_ was what he clearly meant. There were people that would rather have her. Interesting. Cersei was right.

"With pleasure," she agreed.

"I, of course, would be the girl's regent. And once she reaches marriageable age - " _once she bled_ "- she will be returned to be married". To him if he was supported by the lords, no doubt.

Sansa smiled. He thought it was her gentle heart that had made her accept Cersei’s request. An oath made to a dying woman upon her deathbed, like her father had once done. A task to complete in the sake of duty, perhaps honor, but nothing else. Sansa's smile widened.

" _No_."

"Forgive me," he snorted, "if I wasn't clear enough, but this was no suggestion. I have -”

"Nothing. You have nothing. No food. No men. No _gold_." He clenched his jaw and it was the assurance she needed that Cersei had spoken the truth. "And I believe I'm not mistaken - didn't my brother take control of Ashemark for a while? Have you recovered from that particular affair? It's been some time, but still, fields don't recover from night to day, and soldiers do tend to steal what they find. And you've been home, at peace, for such a short while," she mused, an eyebrow raised.

He grimaced. "That maybe so, but I was a Commander of Armies and of the City Watch. What do you know of leading a war, Lady Stark?"

Sansa shrugged. "Nothing at all. What I do know, is that it is very hard to wage one with a few tired, hungry men, who see no purpose to it. No victory to be had at all. And for _a girl_ , no less," she chuckled.

No one would be stupid enough to lead southern men North in the midst of winter, expect Daenerys Targaryen.

"So, allow me to offer you my preposition. I will keep her with me until she is a woman grown. Who I will then send West, with a favorable marriage alliance to be chosen by me." He was about to object. "And you will be regent, with my full support and aid, should you require it, and we shall be the closest of friends. And when she returns you will gracefully retire from your duties to be her most devoted advisor, held in her highest esteem." When he took too long to answer she carried on. "Make no mistake that there are _other_ lords I could offer this to, older and more amenable to me, who would be most pleased to hold her position until their death. And yet, you were a dear friend of her father, I was told, and I am an agreeable woman, so I ask you _first_."

He looked at her carefully, studying her face, looking for any apprehension she might have, any fear. Wondering if she would flinch. Considering both his options and hers. And he too, made his decision.

"Very well." He then took a step back and bowed his head. "Your Grace."

He left her rooms and the battle was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll go to winterfell next, to Arya's reaction and to get the feel of the northen court. And hopefully we'll get to see Sansa's struggle with motherhood. The flashbacks from Sansa and Cersei's conversations during her pregnancy will also appear each new chapter. 
> 
> I have to thank you for all so much for your kind comments again, I hope you'll continue on this journey with me.


	3. Motherhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We can afford not be heartless anymore.

_Past_

She flooded the room with yellow fabric. Honey yellow, marigold and apricot. Threw some green and blue sashes as well. It was mostly from old curtains and bedspreads, old scraps lost in forgotten trunks, she wasn't about to go spend a small fortune in fabric for a dead woman, yet she recognized the need for it.

"Little dove?" she wondered, eyebrow raised. She looked more like herself today. But there were still dark circles under her eyes and wheels spinning on her mind, she could tell.

Arya wouldn't understand it. Her feelings for this woman. Her charity, her care. No one would. Most days not even Sansa did. Yet it was the only thing that made sense in her mind. The only thing she could do that seemed right, that made the whole affair bearable. The only thing that could bring her closer to the old Sansa. The only thing that could prevent her from losing herself under her crown.

"You can't be seen wearing red." The Lannister reminder was far too powerful, when a Lannister dressed in red, they prepared themselves for war and these lords wanted her humble and penitent. The reason they hadn't given her any clothes. "But you can wear yellow. When I met you, you wore it."

Cersei scrunched her nose in weak show of displeasure. "I haven't sewed in years."

A queen doesn't need to sew. Not unless she wants to hold a sewing circle, not unless she wants to engage with other women, to learn their secrets, to make them useful. Cersei had never wanted to. Maybe she had in the beginning, before Sansa had arrived at court, before her children, when she had thought she could carve some place of power for herself in a Baratheon court, Sansa couldn’t imagine that having lasted very long.  
  
"I did my own dresses when I was your hostage. But you know that. You would send fabric for me to choose from, when the one I had got too small," she reminded her. “You can sew your own. It isn’t a skill easily forgotten and it might soothe your mind.”

Cersei studied her for a moment. "You always picked purple. Red and blue, your mother's colors. First you would choose light pink, harder to connect for small minded people, but then you though I would lose interest. I always noticed. It's hard for a girl to let go of her mother. I allowed you that."

Sansa rolled her eyes. "As the merciful woman that you were, how gracious of you."

Cersei ignored her. "Is that why you brought me yellow? Are _you_ being merciful, Sansa Stark?"  
Sansa didn't answer, and they stood there for a moment taking each other in full.

"Why don't you wear gray now, Sansa? For your father. It's still cold enough to wear black. Yet, it is only blue and red, I see you in. Tell me, shall we speak frankly of dear old Ned?" She smiled pleased with herself.

She had worn black. She had worn black for so long, mostly in mourning. For herself, for her family, because she hadn’t been able to do so in all her years of captivity. And one day, she stopped. Honor had allowed the Massacre of Kingslanding, better to let a woman burn a city away than drive a knife across her back, than to break an oath, her father might have thought. 

“Of course. Then we’ll speak of yours,” Sansa offered, with her own smile.

Fathers sold daughters everywhere in the world. Owned wives just as much. Though both their fathers had loved their mothers, each in their own way. Tywin had sold her to Robert just as much as her father would have sold her to Joffrey, had he not been a bastard.

Cersei’s face fell, but she recovered quickly enough. “Very well, dove. Mothers it is,” she decided.

“My mother was a true lioness, with a mind as sharp as my father’s, they were a true match.” She looked towards the window, where the bright sun shone high in the sky. “They called me the Light of the West, but – “she shook her head – “she was far more beautiful than I ever could be, radiant. Such a _dignified_ woman, she would have died before having to endure this humiliation.”

Cersei had tried, in the beginning, she had tried. Shards of glass, sharper pieces of wood, since then the room had been mostly emptied of options and she had seemed to lose her will. Sansa once had considered throwing herself from the highest tower of the Red Keep, when she was their prisoner, If Cersei really wanted to, she would have jumped already.

“And yet you remain.”

She cradled her child. “My father wanted nothing more than to build a legacy. He said that it was the family name that lived on. The Lannister name the only thing that lives on. He thought that Jamie would carry it, he also feared it would be Tyrion. But it was always supposed to be me. I though it was so very clear, but fathers look to their sons, not to their daughters – never mind _we_ ’re the dutiful ones.”

Her father had looked to Arya. But when the time came, he would have had her marry as well, same as her, wouldn’t he. She might have raged and screamed but she would have ended up married to a man of his choice, or she would have become another Lyanna. Like he both feared and _encouraged_. Sansa was the dutiful one, Sansa was the one that obeyed and yet he had killed her wolf.

Sansa clenched her hands hard enough to draw blood. She hadn’t thought of these things in years. She _couldn’t_ now.

Cersei noticed, she always did, and her smirk was victorious. “It’s funny, isn’t it, dove? We want to talk about our mothers, yet our fathers’ sins are always there, in the back of our mind, ready to haunt us. Is _that_ , why you wear blue?”

_Present_

It wasn’t easy at first.

Sansa had barely agreed to keep the child, when she was placed upon her arms. And all of her time since then, was invested in the politics that took to be able to keep her. She barely had the state of mind to pay close attention to the babe when there were practicalities more important to deal with.

She was fast to procure a wet nurse while she was still at Riverrun so she wouldn’t depend so entirely on Lady Roslyn’s charity. Darla was a mother of 4, a quiet woman, with gentle and ready hands. With her husband having died in the siege of Riverrun and a babe at her breast, she was quick to accept the position to come to Winterfell and care for the child.

The little lady would have to receive the proper education befitting the position of Lord of Casterly Rock, even if Sansa was to take on her wardship, so she spoke to the Lords of the West that were at Riverrun, the ones that seemed more receptive when Lord Royce had named her their lady, asked for recommendations for tutors of the Westerlands, once the child was old enough to begin her lessons. Received a dozen names she would choose from after accessing whatever loyalties they might have and their suitability. Asked much the same from Lord Marbrand, so as to not make him excluded.

And once the matters were settled and Cersei Lannister’s body was taken to Kingslanding, to be buried among the rubble, where most of her family stood, they all made way home, wherever that was.

She didn’t see much of the babe during the travel back to Winterfell. The babe was in the carriage with Darla and her children while Sansa had to ride for most of the journey, so her people would see her. Which wasn’t to say that she didn’t care for the babe, she did, wholeheartedly, but she only cried and ate and slept, and Sansa found there was little contribution she could offer to the whole matter. It was safer to leave her to Darla, who knew what she was doing.

She knew what to expect when she arrived North – a full assembly and impatient lords. She was not disappointed. They bowed and curtsied, cheered and rang the bells for her arrival, yet they were all itching to speak to her.

She was received by Lady Dustin’s cold frown first, who dragged her away to her solar before anyone else had the chance to.

Barbrey Dustin was an imposing woman. Tall and unbending. Someone who hated Stark men and had never made point to hide it. Sansa was lucky to not count herself among them. And while she had kept faith with Roose Bolton after the Red Wedding – as had most of the North - she had hated his bastard with a passion and had sent no men of hers so that he might keep Winterfell.

She was a woman that knew where to place her bets. Someone who knew how to play. Were Sansa to punish her for having kept to Roose Bolton, she would have to rid herself of most of her surviving bannerman. For fear or lack of option, they had mostly followed him. And of all of them, Barbrey was the only one that could challenge her. She held both Dustin and Ryswell houses firmly in her hand. Sansa kept her close and made her Hand of the Queen, the woman had only laughed and took the position willingly.

“That was a dangerous move, Your Grace,” she pointed out dispassionately. “ _Well played_.” She gifted her a rare smirk.

Sansa smiled. A Lannister Lady raised by Winterfell was nothing else but a true win for the North. A show of strength. And who could argue with Lady Dustin who stood the test of time.

“And the other Lords agree?”

She knew Wyman Manderly would support her. The Manderlys were her most loyal house and alliances so strong as this were hard to find without having to promise a hand in marriage, and their Queen only had one. Ondrew Locke and Lyessa Flint would follow – the Lockes and the Flints were used to taking their cues from Manderly. She was sure Jorelle Mormont would support her, as would Jonelle Cerwyn and Eddara Tallhart. House Reed was far too loyal to ever raise issue with such a small matter, Meera Reed would keep faith. Most of the other heads of the remaining houses had been chosen by Sansa herself with the great lack of direct heirs, their positions too fragile to openly disagree with the one that had given them their seat. Yet she could never be too sure.

“Ryswell and Glover have their issues, but my brother will do as I say, and you know how fearful Glover is that you might yet punish him for refusing Jon Snow’s call.” She scowled.

Lady Dustin hadn’t bent the knee to Jon Snow. Sansa was Lady of Winterfell, by blood and conquest, her right, so she would be her bannerman. But Jon Snow was Eddard Stark’s bastard, a man she hated, crowned King by achievements not his own, by the will of the Mormont child. Jon had been so blinded by the people who had cheered him on, that he didn’t noticed the people who hadn’t. Lady Dustin was a wise woman that could not be trusted wholeheartedly but would never be dismissed from her court, for fear of what she could do away from it.

“ _Good._ That is very wise of him.” Sansa took a deep breath. “I’ll meet with all of them shortly.”

Lady Dustin nodded, taking hold of her black skirts before she stopped in her tracks and looked back at her.

“Did she give you her child by her own will?” Sansa nodded. “Why?” The disbelief on her voice was palpable.

“In a castle full of enemies?” Sansa shrugged and looked her right in the eye. “I was the one she knew.”

Lady Dustin hummed and eyed her carefully for a moment, before she curtsied and left her solar.

The babe was beautiful. And quiet. It was what disturbed her the most. A babe of Cersei Lannister had no reason to be quiet. She had alabaster skin, now she had been cleaned. Chubby cheeks and pouted pink lips. When she opened her eyes, they were still grey with just a little light of green, but she was told that it would change.

They had noticed. All of them. How she barely went to see the child. How she only lasted some moments in the same room with her. It hadn’t been so in the beginning. When she was born, she had held her for hours while her mother died in front of them. Their hearts beating in sink. Now it seemed wrong. It seemed wicked. It felt as if she had stolen a child, as if she was just biding her time towards a disaster.

Now she had to force herself in the room with the babe. Her household would follow her lead, were she to appear displeased with the babe, they would mirror it, so as to not offend her. Even if she didn’t mean to, even if she didn’t want to and she didn’t. So, three times a day she would come into the nursery, always when the babe was sleeping, and she would sit on the rocking chair, looking at her. Sometimes, like today, the babe – _Joanna_ , she had decided – would wake up and they would stare at one another for as long as Sansa could bear it.

“Your Grace, Princess Arya has arrived,” a maid entered the room to tell her.

Sansa nodded and counted to ten before allowing herself to run away from the nursery.

She looked happier. Her skin tanner and the shadows under her eyes from the Massacre of Kingslanding were nearly gone. She seemed _fuller_.

"It has come to my attention, sister," she wrapped her arms around her, holding her close, "that in my absence you have gone mad, yet with marvelous political implications, I'm told by your Lady Dustin."

"While I've gone mad, it has come to my attention that you are with child." She looked down at the bump between them. "Might I presume that I know the father, " she asked knowingly, "and that he does not know?"

"You were always so good at presuming." She exhaled and made her best efforts to keep her eyes from the ones staring her down by the forge. "Will you feed me now, so we might talk?"

Sansa nodded and led them away towards her solar, where food was already waiting for them. Arya took no time to sit and fill her plate with the simple meal offered. She seemed ravenous, like a wolf.

"Was this the reason you cut the trip short?"

"Yes, my crew just thought I was getting fat, but they would understand eventually," she answered between bites of cheese and bread.

"And you plan to keep the child?"

"This far along it isn't like I have any choice, do I." She snorted at the implication.

Sansa shrugged but didn't add anything to it. "Will you tell him?"

"I suppose I must." She took a gulp of soup. "The bastard might try to propose again, I'm sure."

"And you do not approve?" Sansa frowned.

"It's not that. I just don't want to be anyone's wife, anyone's property."

"And you think that he might impose that upon you?"

"What? No! But to the world... "

"Well, with him being a bastard, should you marry he would take your name. Stark upholds over Waters. And if you don't, your child would be Stark either way. I've decreed it. Bastards will take their mother's name from now on, it's the sensible thing to do." No more nameless children. 

Arya hummed. “That’s true. Mother would be furious." Her voice softened and she looked down in shame.

“Mother would understand.” She reached for her hand, to sooth her.

Arya shook her head. “She didn’t understand with father.”

Sansa smiled weakly and squeezed her hand gently. Arya had adored father, so much, idolized him. She was younger than Sansa, she hadn’t paid such close attention to his faults, like she had, from a distance. Like she had been forced to, when they were faced with the reality of the world.

“There was nothing to understand Arya. He lied to her, humiliated her, endangered her. Had he told her the truth she _might_ have understood,” she offered with sympathy. “After what we’ve been through, she would have understood the need to grab love, wherever we might find it, in whichever way.”

Arya smiled, a sad smile, but a determined one.

“In truth it has taken some worries away from me. Now the lords can be rest assured that even if I don't have a child, the north would never fall upon a Lannister babe," Sansa tried to jest.

"Yes, tell me about that. At once," she demanded, her demeanor completely changed.

"Of course, there's the marvelous political win," she tried to explain like she was so used to.

She waved her hand. "Yes. Yes. I have little care for that. Tell me about _her_. Did she suffer?” The coldness in her voice made her shift in her seat.

“She did. For 3 moons she raged and despaired in fear for what could happen. She still had some bite to her, of course, and she used it well. And I did go to her, often, in spite of it,” she informed her, anxiously waiting for an outburst.

“Why?”

“Because had it been me, locked in that room, waiting for my child to be born so that it could be taken away from my arms, I would have liked someone to show me some kindness.”

And that was the truth of it.

“You pitied her.” Sansa nodded. “It’s truly a wonder what they call you. Ice Queen, the Queen of Winter, if only they could see your gentle heart.”

“Aren’t you very cross with me? That I was… kind, to her?” She was eager to know.

“I have let myself be consumed by revenge, I wouldn’t wish the same upon you, sister. You didn’t free her, didn’t pardoned her. You offered what little mercy you could to a dying woman. We can’t act at peace in the same we would during a war. We can afford not be heartless anymore.”

She had never considered it like that. That surviving during a war is different than surviving the end of it. The brutal things people did to survive wartime, the brutal things they did when they didn’t recognize it was over. Cersei didn’t present any danger to her in her imprisonment. She was no longer a queen. She had no weapons, no gold, no men, no one to save her, only her words, no matter how sharply she could wield them. She was just a broken woman with child. And Sansa had treated her as such. There could be no shame in that. Could it?

It was Arya’s time to squeezy her hand gently and offered her a smile. “Let’s see her, shall we?”

"She's a pretty babe," she said surprised.

"What did you expect, a monster with fangs? Her mother was a pretty woman. And all her children were pretty."

She looked at the babe mindfully, carefully and then took a step back and crossed her hands behind her back.

Arya frowned. "Aren't you going to hold her?"

She shook her head and didn’t look down. "Not right now. I have duties to attend to."

"You're scared," Arya pointed out, not unkindly, "of a babe?"

Every time a Targaryen was born the gods flipped a coin, the same could be applied to the Lannister now, couldn’t it. Joffrey was mad. Myrcella and Tommen were good, gentle children. The odds were against them. This babe, this babe that had watched her mother die, in Sansa's arms. The odds were against her.

"No! Of course not. It's just..." She sighed. "One day, when she's old enough, she'll know what happened to her mother and she'll hate me for it."

"You hold no guilt for what happened to Cersei. She made her choice, she chose her grave. You showed her more kindness than could ever be expected of you, than could ever be expected of anyone. And a child raised by you would know that. She'll be your child. Not Cersei’s. "

"And if she's like Joffrey. What if a child raised by me becomes Joffrey," she questioned her.

"You would know the signs. You would recognize them from a mile away and I would be here to help you do it."

Sansa snorted. "Cersei knew the signs. Cersei saw who her child was, she wasn't blind to it."

"And she did nothing to stop it."

Sansa shook her head. "We can't know that. We have no idea. We can only assume, yes, but we don't know. We don't know what can be done if ever the time comes."

"When the time comes, we will - "

"No! We have to prepare, now! _I_ have to be prepared, I have to know what to do, what can be done, so that one day, _when_ she is cruel, _when_ she points that crossbow at someone I'll do what needs to be done, whatever that may be." She knew her voice was shaking, knew she was mixing the past with the present, so she pushed it all down and took a deep breath.

"And you'll prepare by keeping your distance? Making sure that your love for her will never blind you? You'll be her mother in name alone. A warden. Like _father_ was to Theon? That had wonderful consequences."

Sansa head snapped towards her. She had no idea what so say. Theon’s name took the air from her lungs. Arya exhaled.

"You keep Lady Dustin near, the old hag, you even like her, I can tell, but you don't trust her. Should the time come when you need to act you would so without regrets. Without second guessing yourself." Sansa nodded. "And Littlefinger, you held that trial. You cried one tear and then you passed the sentence." Sansa swallowed harshly. "And Jon? You _broke_ your heart, you're grieving _still_ from the loss of him, but you made the choice required of you like the ruler you are."

"A child is different Arya," she said solemnly.

"Indeed. She's not Joffrey yet, she might never be, she's just a babe. A babe who has no one in the world but you. So, you either become her mother or her keeper.” Arya shrugged. “And if you didn't want to be her mother, you might as well have given her to the West. Unless she's only another piece of the game. Like you were once to her dead mother."

Another task from his King, like Theon was to their father. She hadn’t considered it. Theon, she hadn’t though of him, how could she have not. She couldn’t let him slip from her memory.

Arya took a deep breath and placed a hand on her bump. "Should anything happen to me I know what kind of mother you would be to my child. And I can assume Cersei though much the same way as me, however much I despise saying it. I know the many voices you have in your mind. What you _want_ to do, what you think you _have_ to do – what duty commands, what honor demands. But I would urge you to follow your heart, sister, follow your conscience. You are more than a ruler, and there are burdens to your crown that would weigh far more upon your conscience than they would benefit the North." She put herself on the tips of her toes so she might kiss her on the cheek and then she left her all alone with her child.

She had been so quiet during the whole conversation, as if she could hear her future being decided. Her big eyes were on her, as they so often were.

They were no longer at war and this child was not Joffrey, she reminded herself one last time and then, finally, Sansa leaned over the crib and picked her up.

She was heavier now, Joanna. She didn’t cry, Sansa had been terrified of it, that as soon as she held her, she would cry, but she didn’t, just a peaceful sigh as she nested in her arms. Sansa smiled and sat on the rocking chair and at last she didn’t feel the overwhelming need to run and a sense of peace she didn’t recognize settled in her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You would be surprised with just how many northern houses are extinct, but NOT house Mormont, while D&D decided to kill 4 Mormont women just to have a cute moment of a Lyanna crowning Jon snow, I will not have it in this fic. I went with Jorelle because I can pretend she's younger than Lyanna and therefor her heir (or maybe Alysanne named her daughter after one of her sisters if you prefer) and still follow mostly the show however much it pains me to do so. The subject of the northern lords will be revisited in the next chapter. Worry not, but taking away the unfortunate issue of the Mormont house, I followed the book (and the show about house umber and karstark) and most of the still existing houses are ruled by the women or men mentioned. 
> 
> Jon Snow will be a big point of the next chapter and will appear in the end if everything goes according to plan.
> 
> Thank you again for all your comments, I love reading them all. And thank you for bearing with me.


	4. threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The north remembers. 
> 
> And yet they hadn't.

_Past_

“Tell me how it happened. Indulge a dying woman, sweetling,” she asked her while she begrudgingly ate her porridge.

Sansa had nothing to lose, really. And Cersei had spoken to no one but her, so she acquiesced, knowing it would make it easier to force herself to eat if she was distracted.

“I went to him, to Castle Black. Still bloodied and bruised -” she clenched her jaw and waited. For the jab to come, for her to laugh at her misery and call it well deserved. Cersei remained silent, so she continued, “– and he was so very glad to see me.”

He had held her so closely and how he had sighed on the hollow of her shoulder. How content he seemed to have her near. How it had settled the insecurity in her that he would turn her away.

She chuckled bitterly. “How lovely. And tell me, was he very knight like when he promised to vanquish your monsters, take back your home for you." Her voice was sharp. "Jaime liked those promises too, it was harder to keep them, though." She ran a hand through her hair, absentmindedly.

 _The walk of atonement_. What had Cersei to atone for than most of the men who watched her doing it hadn’t? They wanted to humiliate her. They considered the cruelest thing they could do to a woman, one they would never dare do to a man, and they had her bare herself to everyone, because they couldn’t conceive letting her have the choice over her own body and called it the gods’ punishment. As if they weren’t only men, as if they had more divinity than her. She had imagined many punishments for Cersei, as had Arya, but never that. There were punishments that fit no crime.

Her brother hadn’t rescued her, Cersei could relieve herself with the knowledge that neither had hers.

" _No_. He wanted to go south. Essos, I think. Towards the sun. Leave it all, run away," she reigned herself calm to say it. Bit her tongue to keep her feelings at bay. The relief she felt to meet him. The disappointment that filled her after he didn’t even think to avenge her.

That took even Cersei Lannister aback. How lucky for her, to still be surprised by the fallings of men. " _Oh_ , I see. What happened then."

"There was a raven. They had taken Rickon as a hostage. And there was no choice but to fight for him." But not for her.

Cersei shook her head slowly. "You could never get him back alive."

"I was aware -" she swallowed drily "- he wasn't."

Her poor baby brother. His body shot with arrows. His face so much like she had remembered Robb. She had been the one to clean his body, sang lullaby songs from her mother while she sewed his wounds shut, so alike her own. Saw everything the bastard had done to him. Wished his death had been crueler, longer.

"He was being too rash. Walking right into a threat with too little man. I had no choice but to call the Knights of the Vale and Baelish with them," she felt the need to explain, _still_ , how pitiful.

"And then, they made him king. _Because he was a man_. Did he notice." Sansa frowned. "The reason, did he notice," she prodded skillfully.

She shook her head. "No, not at all, I don't think so. I don't know if it makes it better or worse."

"If he noticed then he willingly took your crown from you. If he didn't, then he thought he deserved it more than you. That's the difference sweetling," she said matter-of-factly.

He had just told her she had been the one to win the battle. He knew. But he was a man, wasn’t he? She was a woman – raised to be a lady with all that it entailed, then a consort, then a player of the game of thrones. And he was a Lord Commander. Maybe he thought that it made him worthier to command their people. Maybe it had – in the beginning.

"I didn't mind being a kingmaker, not at first. But he was so willfully unprepared and so unwilling to take counsel."

"No one does, dove, not at first. Father didn’t mind, but then Aerys pushed him too far. It’s all very exciting to put them on the throne, to keep them there, but then they forget it’s not only theirs. They forget they owe it all to someone who stands behind them. And it’s very hard to stand behind someone who is only on their feet because of you, I’m told.” She shrugged when Sansa didn’t respond. “He took the onion smuggler as a Hand didn’t, he? How disappointing," she changed the topic.

The former hand of a dead southern king. Just because he got him a few Mormont men. How disappointing indeed.

Sansa couldn’t understand where Cersei was trying to go. What she was scheming. If she was scheming something at all. Comparing Sansa to her father seemed strange. Seemed wrong if she was trying to gather goodwill from her. But it had crossed her mind, _once_ – while she heard them cry for the King in the North, she considered just how many times, with how many kings Tywin Lannister had stood in her position.

Cersei had asked so many questions today. Pulling on one thread, then trying on another. Seeing what she would answer, if she answered at all. She was trying to get the feel of her. What was the same, what had changed, since all those years ago. It seemed like a possibility.

"I can only wonder what your mother might have said. All her life she must have dreamt of Greystark rebellions. A recognized bastard under her own roof, his face so alike your father’s... Not even Robert did that to me," she pointed out shrewdly, looking for a reaction.

And didn't her mother’s every fear come true. Sansa made him a Stark and he unmade her.

"Yet, you fell in love with him anyway, why?"

Sansa looked away in thought. "We were watching over the north in the battlements, _we have to trust each other_ , he said. _I'll protect you_ , he said."

Cersei rolled her eyes. "What a stupid thing to say."

Sansa laughed then. She didn't know why but looking back it was so funny to her. "It truly was. But he sounded so earnest. He wanted so much for it be true. I'd miss that. Honesty. Saying what you mean and meaning what you said. I wanted so much to believe him. And he seemed so lovely saying it. I knew it then."

Cersei nodded slowing. Understandingly.

Living at court, with Baelish, with Cersei, she had lied and evaded for most of her life. Kept her emotions at bay. Her feelings well hidden. Her intentions deep within. And yet it only took Jon Snow and his hollow promises, and she thought it could all be different. She knew she loved him because she wanted so much to believe his empty words.

"But you never had him. _Why_ ," she pushed harder.

" _You know why_."

_Present_

“The glass gardens?”

“Your lords have been following your instructions to the letter. As have their sworn houses,” Lady Dustin informed her.

“And _Maidenfort_?”

She had given all the other lands. Last Hearth, Hornwood and Karhold. But the Dreadfort, that she had kept for herself. Her inheritance as a widow. Her spoils as the victor. She wanted to name it something silly. Something that would make people forget who lived there. Something that would remind them of her, that she remembered and because of it so did the North. Wolfhall, Birdsnest, she thought of Redfort, but it would remind the people of the blood spilled there.

“The constructions are going smoothly.”

She had the kennels destroyed and glass gardens built in their place. It would finally have some proper use. And that room. That blasted room the bastard had told her so much about, where he promised to hang her skin when he was done with her, like the Bolton Kings had done to so many Starks before. She had it destroyed, and a statue of the Mother, with a remarkable similarity to herself, build right there, a crown upon her head – not because she prayed to the Seven, not because she cared for the gods – but because it served as a reminder. The Starks remember and Sansa Stark most of all. She had more plans for the Maidenfort, but she was keeping them close to her heart, waiting for a little more leeway amongst her lords, further down her rule.

Meanwhile she was having glass gardens built everywhere. It wasn’t known when the next true winter would come but she would never let them find themselves unprepared again. She had started with the Maidenfort and expanded the ones at Winterfell. Had the sand shipped from Dorne, as well as crafters to teach her own men, since it would be costly to have them made there and then brought North. She had all the wood they could require to reach the high temperatures to produce the glass. Once the first panels had been achieved successfully, she expanded her plans along to her lords as soon as she could and considered the small cost of the sand shipping and the glassmakers money well spent.

“Wylla?”

The green haired girl looked back at her. Joanna in her arms. Her household followed her lead. Her babe was growing and as she learned to sit and started to play, she had a crib made to be in her solar, so they could spend more time together while she worked. Her ladies took to holding her while they advised her. She was a joyful and lively babe and was overjoyed with the attention.

Sansa had changed the laws of inheritance. The majority of her houses were already ruled by women, this was the perfect way to both consolidate their claims to their own homes and resolve future issues down the road. The North would follow Dorne and firstborn would inherit, girl or boy.

Lord Wyman would be followed by his son Wylis, who had two daughters, Wynafryd and Wylla. His firstborn would inherit and Wylla, she had called to court. What a fiercely loyal girl, not much younger than her, that brought pride to her house. The Manderlys had to have a relevant role at court to make up for the insult it was that she had preferred Lady Dustin as her hand. Having Wylla as her permanent councilor made for an honorable distinction of House Manderly.

“How is the search for husbands for Wynafryd?” she asked mindfully.

“Your Grace knows how scrupulous Grandfather is about these things.”

It would have to be someone Wynafryd could control. Someone he could shape. Someone who would give pride to the Manderly name and never put to question the Lady’s authority.

“Maybe if you would look south. Towards Dorne or the Free Cities, even. You know how much faith I have in White Harbor to increase our trade,” she said gently, knowingly. Flattery could stir someone almost everywhere.

She wanted to cement trade. And her Master of ships granddaughter and heir was essential to its achievement.

“I’ll speak of it with Grandfather, Your Grace. Worry not,” she was quick to say.

A red-faced maid breathlessly burst into her solar.

“Your Grace – your grace, a wildling,” she sputtered.

Sansa was out of her seat immediately.

She laughed with him for quite some time over mead and meat, before she finally asked, "Why are you here, Tormund?"

He sighed and scratched his red beard and then he looked to the babe sleeping in the crib by her bed. She had figured that much.

"Whispers of the Queen of Ice's child reach all the way to the wall. He was going mad, truly. The poor fucker. So, I came. To see, because he wouldn't come himself. " He shrugged. "Tell me, Sansa Stark. Tell me about the babe. So, I might tell your Jon Snow. "

The loyalty Jon Snow inspired. To ride far and wide just to ease his mind. Sansa wanted to laugh. She wondered if he offered loyalty back to this man, or if it was only denied to her.

His words irked her though. He was not hers, had never been. And she was not his, would never be again. People don't belong to each other. And she would never belong to any man, ever again. She owed him no explanations, nothing at all. And yet -

"He is not my Jon Snow. But she is also not my child -" she looked back at her darling, her golden curls up in the air, her clearest feature she could see from a far, "- not in blood at least."

He nods with his head so she might tell him more.

"She's the queen's child, before she died, she asked me to keep her and I obliged," she explained

He spitted his ale. "The white woman's child? Is it J-"

"Gods no! Not _that_ woman. Cersei Lannister."

It makes her wonder. Would she have raised that other woman's child? Jon's bastard. Would she? Would she have broken her own heart like that. She hopes not. A Targaryen babe. If she had feared for her Joanna, she wouldn't have slept at night considering all that Targaryen inbred blood. And how cruel it would have been. She would have been considered for the task, of that she had no doubt, one last humiliation. By the gods she hoped she would have said no. But she could hear her Stark blood whispering differently. Her stomach was turning just with the thought.

"The queen of the South's child. The Lion one," she made clear.

He grunted. "Queens in the South, queens in the North. What was the white woman queen of anyway," he muttered into his ale.

"Dragons. " Sansa said simply. "And some lands across the red sea, but she lost them all anyways, " she remembered from what Arianne told her.

"Huh." He scratched his forehead. "The lad wasn't very bright, was he."

Sansa could only shrug.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “since I’m here. There is little to hunt across the wall.”

Sansa raised a brow. She had expected it when he arrived. The Night King must have killed all the game there was before finally crossing, and Sansa had fed them before. It wasn’t such a hard train of thought to think she would do so again. People expected so much of her. Never would this man have come before her father – before Robb – and ask them for food. No exchange whatsoever, just a request.

“So, you’ve come to ask for my charity.” He scoffed and she tilted her head to the side in challenge. “Am I then to assume you’ll kneel for my aid in your survival?”

The free folk were proud and free. She didn’t want to alienate them like her elders had done before her. But she wouldn’t let them lean on the goodness of her heart. Her people had little care for the wildlings who took very kindly to raiding their homes and stealing their daughters, no matter if they had fought on the same side, they wouldn’t feed them from their own crops as well.

“The free folk don’t kneel Red,” he was quick to tell her.

“Yes, I know. I’ll grant you 6 sacks of grain in goodwill, because we fought together,” she offered.

He had fought against the Boltons. For Jon, of course, but she wouldn’t forget it just because it wasn’t in her name. Starving people were also more likely to raid and since the Umber lands were the most usual grounds to suffer attacks due to their proximity to the Wall, she wanted to give her new lords some moons to settle first.

“ _We fought together_ ,” he repeated her words. “Can’t you do better than that?”

“Do you think it’s fair I give you food harvested by my people, my people who are raided and stolen from by yours?”

“No man should have to kneel for food,” he countered.

“In a kind a world. Perhaps. In this one my people are fed and yours are hungry, and here you are, asking for my help with nothing to offer me.”

Tormund smirked, he wasn’t done. “Snow spoke of trade posts. That would help both our people, wouldn’t it?” he wiggled his brows.

Sansa saw red. He presumed still to command her, all the way from across the Wall. To meddle in affairs far beyond the scope his abilities.

“Did he now?” Sansa smiled, a saccharine sweet smile. “Do you speak for all the free folk clans Tormund? Because I know Jon Snow doesn’t speak for the North. And for such a thing to be possible there would be terms for me to even consider bringing it up with my lords.”

“Name them.”

“No more raiding. No more stealing women, the agreement of all the chieftains. Consequences for those who fail to meet them.”

He frowned. “Consequences?”

“I geld northern rapists. I would have you do the same to whomever presumes to steal Northern women, if you are to be allowed in my lands,” she explained plainly.

He shook his head. “I can’t promise that.”

“Then I can’t accept wildling trading posts.” She shrugged. “These are my terms. You can take them to your fellow men to discuss, I’ll be here, waiting.”

Tormund eyed her appreciatively. “You’re different, Red,” he pointed out.

Sansa laughed without strength. “Not at all. You just weren’t used to hearing me speak.”

“ _Never again_ ,” she exhaled.

Arya’s face was red and swollen. She had tears going down her eyes and she had clenched her jaw so much to avoid screaming they had to give her leather to avoid letting her break her teeth.

 _Small hips_ , the midwives had whispered in her ear. _Still a child_ , she heard behind her back. Sansa knew she meant it. There had been so much blood and Sansa noticed scars in her stomach she didn’t knew existed, that no doubt hadn’t helped her ability to bear children.

Sansa looked towards the head midwife, Sarra, she shook her head. The child and her sister would live. But no more children, she wouldn’t survive it again.

“ _Never again_ ,” Sansa promised, while she took a cold rag to her neck and chest and kissed her brow like she knew her mother would. “One babe is quite enough,” she tried to laugh to lift her spirits.

She was the older sister. She was supposed to have been through this first. She should be able to offer knowledge and guidance. She couldn’t though, she could only offer support.

Arya shook her head. “I never wanted to have them Sansa. That was always you. One is quite enough for me,” she assured her with a weak smile. “Go get her for me.”

She was a small little thing, much more than Joanna had been. She had the darkest of hair, like her mother, like her father. And grey eyes, that might yet change to Durrandon black. But she had the Stark long face and that wouldn’t change.

“She is without a doubt your daughter,” Sansa laughed, as the babe screamed.

Left the midwives prop Arya up on the pillows before placing the child in her arms. She looked so soft in that moment, so in love. She hoped that was what she looked like when she had Joanna in her arms.

“Argella,” For the Storm Queen she would never be. For part of her fathers’ blood, even if she would never bear the name.

“Argella Stark. A strong name. She’ll be a strong babe, like her mother.”

Arya squeezed her hand. “She’ll be like us.” She smiled. “Now send someone to call for that bull before he drives himself mad.”

They stood over the battlements, overlooking the melting snow after the feast in honor of the new Princess of Winterfell. She had called for all of her lords to attend, to make sure they all knew her name was Stark.

"You will have to marry eventually, Your Grace," she told her, with less ease than she normally would.

Sansa raised a brow in challenge. " _Will I_?"

It had surprised her in the beginning. How much time they had allowed her to stay unmarried.

With Jon she thought he would save her for when he had no more choice than to buy an army to fight the Night King. Maybe marry her to someone loyal to him, so he would never have to worry about her speaking her mind again. _Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend._ She wasn't stupid enough to think that being his family would save her. It hadn't with her father. It hadn't with Robb.

Then he had given up his crown and lost all right he could presume to have over her. Of course, Daenerys would try to have her married. She wasn't a politician, but she wasn't that stupid either, she knew how much power Sansa had in her hands. Hers to wield and no one else. And Tyrion would surely come forward as a first option. Poor fool, to think either her or the North would _ever_ accept him even as simply a candidate. They had all died before having had the time to properly think about it.

Since having become queen, one year had almost passed without anyone mentioning the subject. At first, she thought it was because of her Lannister babe, they had afforded her some moons more to take care of the practicalities. Then Arya became with child and Sansa assumed that it eased their minds to have a Stark heir already on the way and they wouldn't think to bother her from now on. She thought the issue was resolved, how naïve she could still be.

Now, as Barbrey refused to look her in the eyes as she said it. The way her leg was twitching, she understood. An heir by her warrior sister would never be enough. They wanted an heir from her. A child of Sansa Stark, the unbent queen, the politician wolf that settled the north after so many years of war and strife. But by the gods they were ashamed. Ashamed of what they let happen in these halls. Of what they didn't raise an army to stop. Of what they abode by, _silently_.

 _The north remembers._ And because _they hadn't_ , for the shame that they would never be rid of – for the history books that would never write of the war that was fought by the North to deliver Sansa Stark from traitor hands, but instead the war Sansa Stark fought to deliver the North. For their shame they wouldn't bother her. For their pride they would keep silent, for how they loved to call themselves different from the southern lords. Yet for their fear, for the fear they had of wars to come for her throne, for the fear they bore over her little cub.

They could only imagine what wars a lion raised by Sansa Stark could wage – for now they were sure she would raise her. It was almost amusing, the fear they had over a child, if only it wasn’t so dangerous. They would beg her for an heir, and they would pester her, quietly, through Lady Dustin. And after, through Wylla, she was sure.

Her surrogate Lannister daughter or her niece by a Baratheon bastard. While not at the same level in claims would still cause factions. They would fight for whomever they thought they could control, blood be damned. And they could still divide the North if ever the time came. And they couldn’t abide by its uncertainty. Had Argella been a boy it wouldn’t be an issue at all. If Argella had been a boy the North would settle for an heir by her warrior sister, of that she was sure. They didn’t want to settle for a girl, Sansa cursed her own womb that they would have to – by the old gods and the new, no male heir would rip its way out from her body.

"Then find me a man Lady Dustin. I was twice wedded. Once bedded. And I killed my husbands with _glee_ , " she was quick to remind her. "Find me a man who can endure the dishonor of being my devoted husband. For he will never be my king, nor my lord. Find me a man who would serve me proudly, and _silently_."

Barbrey sighed and looked down. "I understand, you know I don't-"

"And yet they were comfortable to send you," she interrupted her, her spine steel and her meaning clear.

Barbrey clenched her jaw and was silent for a moment.

"If I were to make it clear, no husband of yours would have either sway or hold, a glorified stallion, at best. They might be open to the Mormont way," she offered.

She eyed her thoughtfully. "My children would be sired by a wolf - " Barbrey nodded -" and they would accept it?"

"Men are proud. Being a husband to a queen and holding less power than they would were she a commoner?" She shook her head vehemently "Some of the ambitious ones might think they could change you, but the wise ones would laugh them away. Yes. If it was the only way to be sure there wouldn't be a conflict with whom would take your crown. I think they would accept it."

She thought about it carefully. It would be easier to find someone to share her bead for one night than the right husband for all the others.

"You have my blessing to spread the word. And when they find the terms to be my husband outrageous, tell them of the only way they will get an heir from me."

Barbrey curtsied as low as she was able. "With your leave, your grace."

It was a warm day. Lovely and bright. The snow melting away. She had taken Joanna for a walk, a crown of Spring’s first blooms atop her head, offered by Darla’s children.

Her darling runs after her, a little tuff of blond curls on her head and the greenest of eyes. Such a sweet little thing she was as she called for “ _Mama_ , _mama_!” She was the most beautiful babe Sansa had ever seen. Her heart burst just looking at her.

She caught her in her arms, lost in thought, blowing raspberries on her neck when she saw _him_. She was going to kill him. Nothing seemed clearer to her in that moment as the knowledge that she was going to kill Jon Snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this took longer than usual and I am very sorry. But this was sort of an in-between chapter, and it took me longer to write because I find the dramatic bits easier and more enjoyable to write. I think the title of this chapter really speaks to the content, I was just trying to tie up some loose ends. Everything in this one will be revisited, that conversation with Cersei has not ended, in the timeline of that it’s still very early in her captivity and she’s trying to understand who Sansa is right now and what she can count on. But I understand I might have shown a different dynamic than what I usually write about those two, it will go back to normal fear not. 
> 
> Joanna is a year old in the end of this chapter, just so you have a timeline. Jon’s POV will be next, the only one he will have, so it will be the only chapter without a Cersei flashback, but we'll see cute mother-daughter moments from his eyes.
> 
> Thank you so much for your support, I will update the next one a lot faster and it will be more interesting, promise!


	5. Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His closed his eyes, and he saw war. He opened them and wished he was there again, because at least there he had purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon's POV. This is very Catelyn friendly, so if you don't like her don't read. Also Sansa's scars will be adressed here, that might be triggering to some.

He had disguised himself like a beggar. Dirtied his face with grime and put ash on his hair and beard to seem older. No one ever looked at the beggars and he wouldn't want to get her into trouble if anyone knew he had left his exile. But he just needed to see. _Her_. And the child. When Tormund had spoken of lions whatever resolve he had left abandoned him and nothing was enough to keep him in place – he _had_ to come.

He had been surprised that there was no snow when he arrived. Winter was at an end, but he had expected some snow. Not the place he remembered from youth.

And then, there she was. Her red hair flowing in the wind, such a contrast to the elaborate styles she had worn during the war to keep her grounded. She had a flower crown atop her head as well. Spring's first blossoms. And the lightest dress she had ever seen her wear. A simple blue dress, that carefully hugged her waist.

She was playing with the child in the comfort of the hidden godswood. She looked so carefree, he had never seen her quite like this. Not even in her childhood. Then she had been cautious, of appearances, of propriety, even as a child. She had been so eager to please, the perfect lady. Now everyone was concerned with pleasing her.

He saw the child next, and by the gods he saw Sansa in her. Their smile was the same, he could only wonder how it could be so similar. And she was so prim and proper, even as she ran, he wanted to laugh. She had golden hair and emerald eyes, like the Lannister did, but by the gods he saw nothing of them in her. She was all Sansa.

Sansa caught her by the arms and the girl wrapped her little arms around Sansa's porcelain bare neck, she whispered something in her ear and kissed the top of her nose.

Sansa was a mother. It hit him like a bucket of ice-cold water. _Sansa was a mother_. To a child that wasn't hers – if only Catelyn Tully could see her.

_To a child that wasn't his._

He had thought of it, once or twice – a hundred times. Ever since Bran anointed him as her cousin – as a Targaryen – he had imagined it all in his head. Everything he had never allowed himself to think. Sansa, draping her arm around his, as they walked along Winterfell. Sansa, staring into his eyes under the heart tree. Sansa, swelling with his child. But then he woke up staring at Daenerys’s white back and he could see it all slipping away.

And then Sansa had had enough – “ _you will show me the respect and deference you so eagerly give that woman”_. And Arya had had enough – “ _If you choose to come back, you will start treating her with the respect she is owed_. _She will never again be humiliated by you. Her judgement doubted by you_.” And then, just like that it was all over. In a blink of an eye Daenerys razed a city as if it was nothing and he stood by. His destiny was being sealed, and he didn’t even know it. “ _A massacre I cannot save you from_ ,” Sansa had said. She had always saved him, but not from that. From loneliness she had saved him, from the dry cold that was the Wall. From the Battle of Bastards, from the body, the sweat and desperation that had threatened to drown him. But enough was enough. No one could save him from what happened in Kingslanding, he wasn’t even sure if she had wanted to try, if it simply wasn’t easier to send him off to the Wall, never to be seen or heard from again. It had all slipped away. She, most of all, slipped away.

And now, there she was, face filled with joy holding a child of the woman he had thought she hated the most. Sansa Stark was a mystery to everyone, or maybe he was right. “ _You sound as if you admire her_ ” – maybe she did.

He wondered. Had the child been his, had Daenerys bore his child, would she have raised it? He had been careful, yes, pierced her through the stomach, avoided any disaster that might have been happening inside her. But he couldn’t help but wonder, would Sansa have raised his child by Daenerys if he had asked her. Would she have loved it? Like her mother couldn’t love him.

Sansa was nothing like her mother now. She looked like her, so much it sometimes pained him to look at her. And she mostly behaved like her, with her cold looks and her restrained smiles, with her courtesies, but here, in the comfort in the godswood, she was so much lovelier with the child than Catelyn had ever been in public – not that he had ever seen how she was with her children in private. Sansa held her without fear of propriety and kissed her often and encouraged the happy girl to do the same, it was heartbreaking to see. How different she was, when he was not around.

She disappeared in front of his eyes. He went straight for his sword looking for the culprit.

“Hello Jon,” she said in a clipped voiced, as she came up from behind him.

His whole body froze. He had a plan, he was going to watch her for a while, waiting for the perfect moment before approaching her, before asking everything he wanted to, but nothing ever went according to plan with him. He had no choice but to turn to her.

She had the child peacefully sleeping against her chest, her little hands holding on to her bare neck. Her puffy cheek resting against – _her scars_. He was used to seeing her in high necked gowns, he knew she had them, imagined she did, but he had never seen them, they had never spoken of them. This dress had a lower neckline and it showed the scars along her shoulder blades. They were terrifyingly premeditated, one side mirrored the other, he could only wonder how the bastard could have had such a steady hand to make them, the strength he must have had to hold her down while he did it, or how exhausted she must have been not to fight back. He never could have imagined anyone taking comfort from them, touching them – yet there she was, the most beloved cub in all of Westeros, taking solace in the arms of the most dangerous wolf in the North – how lucky could a child be, to experience something he would kill to have.

She noticed him looking, and only raised a brow. _Unflinching_. He wondered if she did it on purpose. What man could try and control her when she bore the scars of one who did worse and she had his name erased from history. What man would dare – _he had,_ or at least they told him he had tried.

“Follow me,” she told him, and he was powerless to do anything but follow her. His body had given up on fighting her for much longer than his mind was able to.

She went deeper into the godswood. No one ever bothered her there, he remembered. She had made an oath to him under the weirwood. Had broken it too without remorse and yet no one knew. She had Tyrion killed and Daenerys had killed Varys. Jon couldn’t understand how she did it. How she threw the net to the sea and only caught what she wanted to. How skillfully she played them all. Had she played him as well? Of course, she had.

“Do you know how foolish you are being? How you are endangering us all?” she asked, head tilted to the side. “Tell me Jon, was your punishment at the Wall not enough? Have you come here for more?” Not once did she raise her tone, mindful of the babe on her chest.

“No one saw me, you’re the only one who recognized me” he assured her, raising his arms so she would take a careful look at the effort he had put into his disguise. She was not impressed.

“You have no idea if that is true.” She sighed. “Do you know who survives the game of thrones Jon? The best players or the quietest. Winterfell isn’t without spies. And the Wall less so.”

He had survived, hadn’t he? And by everyone’s admission he was neither a good player nor a quiet one. Yet he had survived, hadn’t he? _Because of the women who saved you_ , a familiar voice seethed in his mind.

“Do you think it isn’t known how you evade your punishment at the Wall? Do you think I won’t have to answer for it?”

That took him aback. Why would they care how he spent his punishment. He was at the Wall wasn’t he? Exiled from his family, from his home. Who would care that he was with the free folk now. Who would bother to go and look for him.

“Have you any idea what compromises I had to make for you to keep your head? How many people have been sworn to secrecy about your birth? The idiocy I had to deal with from Samwell Tarly?”

“What did Sam do?” he was eager to know.

“He thought that if only they knew you were the bastard of Rhaegar Targaryen, that you were the heir to the Iron throne, everything would be forgiven and they would give you the crown,” she was chuckling silently, but he couldn’t understand. She frowned. “Do you not see what would happen as well? _Oh Jon_ ,” she said pitifully.

He shook his head vehemently, he couldn’t think of this now, he would drown in her disappointment, in her pity, in her rage. “I’m not here because of that!”

“Then why are you here? Why are you risking the hand or the eye, I will undoubtably have to take, should anyone see you?”

She said it so clearly that he was almost sure she was speaking the truth. She would take it. She would maim him, and he would be like Jaime Lannister. And what would that make her?

“I’m here for the child. For the danger that you’re putting the North under!”

He didn’t mean it. By the gods, he truly didn’t. But she made him _so_ angry. She was always so unreasonable, so unable to see his point of view. He had taken her punishment willingly hadn’t he? He had gone back to that blasted Wall and he had kept away, silently away from her rule. And yes, he had sent Tormund, with a suggestion, he had been a King once, why was it so hard for her to accept anything he said. Why couldn’t she ever understand him.

She was dangerously silent for what seemed like the longest of times, and he hoped she saw the panic in face, how much he regretted what he said, how little he believed it.

The babe made a small noise in her sleep and Sansa ran a hand up and down her back, soothingly, before speaking.

“Arya had a child. You should go and see your sister. Before tomorrow’s sunlight I want you gone for the Wall and no trace of you to be found. Should you ever come back here, it won’t be a hand I will take, for the danger _you_ present to the North.”

She turned on her heel and left far quicker than he regained his wits to ask her forgiveness.

Her hair was longer. She wore it in a braid very similar to the one she had been partial to wear during her childhood. She had a babe on her arms, Jon wanted to laugh at the strangeness of it all.

“Why are you here, brother?” she asked as she easily placed her child on his arms in the privacy of her chambers.

“I needed to see you all. To know what was happening,” he explained, while he played close attention to the little bundle in his arms, such big grey eyes she had.

“Will you escape your punishment every time you’re curious?” she asked, clearly not pleased at all he was here.

“Does my family hate me _so much_ Arya, that you can’t even pretend to be glad to see me? Is it that arduous to do, to pretend it gives you joy to see your brother? Will you ask for my head as well?”

She rolled her eyes and leaned back on the headboard. “Do you think this brings us joy, brother? Do you think we are pleased to have you on that icy wall?”

“Do you want my honest answer?” he deadpanned.

She sighed. “There are consequences to your actions Jon.”

“And I am paying them! Away from my family, from my home! Is that not enough?!” he tried to keep his tone down, not to upset the child and to give notice of his presence to the castle.

“To the people who survived Kingslanding? That saw their children dying in front of them. That have mangled flesh from the fire of your queen?” She frowned “ _No_ , I don’t think they believe it to be enough and I think you know that.”

He swallowed drily. There were people screaming in front of him, the smell of burned flesh, women scurrying to escape under the weight of Dothraki men. His own men… He couldn’t sleep without seeing it all again. He couldn’t breathe without smelling the ash and the sweat and the fear. His closed his eyes, and he saw war. He opened them and wished he was there again, because at least there he had purpose.

“Your punishment is fair Jon, it’s lenient in truth. And the price of your survival is payed for by Sansa and our people. Food she sells cheaper so the lords alive are quiet about how you can keep you head while so many others lost it for lesser offenses. And yet you want us to be heartbroken for your loss – well, _we are_. I am heartbroken you chose your honor, your oath to that vicious woman, over you family. Sansa is heartbroken she has to be your Queen before she can be your family. Bran is… whatever Bran has been forced to be now. But we carry on, _as you do_ , with the wildings without fear there will be consequences to us.”

“She wasn’t always like that,” he tried to explain. “She was charismatic in the beginning. She wanted to make Westeros into a better place. She was ambitious, yes, and unprepared, surely. But she wasn’t a monster, like you all described Cersei. She was ambitious, yes, but she seemed reasonable.”

She had seemed so bright eyed the beginning. So determined and fierce. Confident in herself and her capacities. Certain of her right to the throne. She looked like a Queen. Different than the way Sansa was. Sansa was cold and temperate, restrained and cautious. Daenerys looked like a force of nature, like her dragons, unmovable. But she seemed hopeful too, wanting of a home and purpose, he recognized it in himself. She seemed certain of the good she could do. He just had to convince her to go North, by _whatever_ devices it took for her to do so.

Arya snorted. “Cersei Lannister at least knew who she was. She recognized herself as the villain. Your queen saw herself as the benevolent leader, the liberator, the savior. Everything that she wasn’t. You should have trusted your family. Not the men that had already fallen for her charms.”

“Like you trusted me?” he was quick to answer her.

She raised a brow. “Trust is not obedience. And you were owed neither, since the moment you had her walk through the gates of Winterfell and forced us to bend to another foreign ruler without even a word of explanation.”

“Tell me Arya. Tell me the truth,” he begged her, as he sat by her bedside. “Do you think I knew. What she was like, what she would turn out to be, do you think I should have known? That I could have stopped it? That I should have let us perish to the Night King instead of giving my crown away?”

“I think you were naïve Jon. I think you believed you could temper her impulses. I think you overestimated yourself and ignored Sansa and me, and everyone else who told you of the foolishness you had committed yourself to. I think you thought you knew northern will better than you did.” She shook her head slowly. “But I don’t think anyone could foresee just how hungry for destruction she was. How unhinged. I don’t think anyone could have prepared for it. And you did a great service to Westeros when you killed her, but you had to be convinced Jon, for far longer than it should have taken to see that you were wrong about her. And yourself.”

He shook his head vehemently. “I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I thought she would be different, I did. I never meant to place you, or Sansa in this position, or Bran. I just missed you all,” he explained as best as he could.

Arya squeezed one of the hands with which he was holding her child. Gendry’s child. He could barely believe it. He didn’t know still how Sansa had allowed it. He didn’t know how Arya had allowed her to keep the child of Cersei Lannister.

“The child. How did it happen?” For the life of him he couldn’t imagine.

Arya laughed before answering. “Sansa is terrified of herself, Jon. She is terrified of her power and how she could wield it. That is why she will never become like one of them,” she assured him passionately. “She saw the child of her enemy and she was terrified of who she would become if she didn’t take her. She saw a woman in fear for her child and she fixed it. That is what Sansa does.”

“I thought you hated Cersei Lannister. For what she did to this family,” he tried to reason with her.

“I did, I do. But they spent years together, while Sansa was all alone. It would be foolish to think that it would mean nothing. That it wouldn’t create some kind of bond, even if it was formed out of hate. People will hold on to anything if it keeps them alive,” she seemed lost in her thoughts for a bit, reliving stories behind her eyes. “Joanna was the closure Sansa needed for that part of her life. Joanna will close the wounds the Lannisters gave her. That is why I have no issue with a child of Cersei Lannister being my niece. I will love her all the same for the peace of mind she brings my sister.”

Jon thought Sansa had liked Tyrion. How she had said he had been kind to her, how quickly she had him sentenced and tried.

“Why can’t you let her go?” she asked all of the sudden, her eyes sharp and gentle, all at the same time. “She’s a queen, she’s a mother. She can’t be haunted forever by what she could not do for you. You can’t ask that of her Jon.”

Sansa was Winterfell. Sansa was home. He didn’t want to haunt her, but he couldn’t let her go.

“I love her,” it was all he could say. It was the only truth he knew.

“You should love her better,” she told him, as she dropped her hand from his.

She was the last one to go to bed and the first one to rise, he knew that as fact. He knew it would never change. He waited in Arya’s chambers until he was sure no one would be out in the halls. Their chambers were very close, and he was sure Sansa knew he was still in the castle.

“I didn’t mean it. Any of it. I don’t think she is any kind of danger. I was just angry… Forgive me,” he asked her as soon as he passed the threshold and closed the door behind him.

Sansa only sighed as she brushed her hair. It was so long that it reached her waist. She was dressed simply in her shift and in a yellow robe that made her even more radiant. He had never seen her in such a bright color. He had never seen her in such little clothing. It seemed wicked to be in her room with her like this.

She pointed with her head to the pitcher and food that was laid out in the table and he was eager to fill a cup of wine to calm himself. He lost all of his wit when he faced her. It was unbecoming.

She followed behind him and filled a cup herself. They sat facing each other.

“You named her Joanna,” he prompted, once he realized she wasn’t going to say anything back.

She nodded. “I did. Cersei loved her mother very much. Had it been the other way around I would have been happy for a child named Catelyn.” She tucked her legs under herself. He was glad to see not everything had changed since her childhood.

“Do you love her,” the question echoed in every part of his being. In the memory he saved of Lady Catelyn’s face, he had to know.

“With all my heart.”

“Your mother couldn’t -”

“It’s different Jon,” she said softly.

“How so?”

“I chose to have her Jon. It was my choice to make. Mother did not. Father arrived with his bastard child, recognized you as his own and had you raised up in her household. Something that was simply not done. You were a threat to her, to her children. To our survival and safety. To the alliance between the Tullys and the Starks.”

He frowned. “I was a child Sansa.”

“Yes Jon, but so were we. And we were her children and you were her new husband’s recognized bastard, with a face so alike his. She was put in an impossible position, in foreign soil with a babe with her Tully features. One that not even Cersei Lannister had to endure. You were treated better than a King’s bastard. Surely you know that.”

He shook his head vehemently. “She was your mother. I don’t expect you to understand. You were the closest to her and it’s hard to understand what it is being a bastard.” Sansa gave him a sad smile.

“Jon, _dearest_ ,” she said it _so_ gently that hope flowered in his chest. “If you want to blame someone for your childhood, you should blame Ned Stark. Its high time we blame him for his mistakes. Not my mother. If you think she was unkind to you I understand it, without reservations, I do. But she had a child imposed upon her, clothed and fed and you were given the same education as Robb. Don’t blame her for not having loved you as well, when you proved every fear, she had about you true.”

He sighed. It always came back to that. Lady Catelyn had feared him and by the gods, he had proved it all true. He was the monster she was so afraid of. The baseless bastard that craved her daughter. That had taken her place from her. But he couldn’t understand why she blamed their father for it. Ned Stark had given him everything.

“What do you propose he should have done, Sansa?”

“He shouldn’t have lied. Not to the woman who was bound to him for life. Not to the woman who couldn’t act against him without acting against herself. That is what he should have done.” _You as well_ , her eyes were clear on that.

“Why did you apologize then – when you arrived at castle black, why did you apologize?”

Must every conversation he had with her have more than one meaning? Did she ever mean anything she said to him at all? Were it all lies and games. Was she all Littlefinger and Cersei, was there anything to her that he could grasp at all. She sounded so true when she said all of these things. She seemed so soft and wanting. Nothing like them at all. But she had done more for Cersei Lannister than he could have ever imagine her doing for him. Would she have kept his child from Daenerys, _would she_ – the question screamed in his head.

“Because you needed me to,” her voice was barely more than a whisper when she said it and she took her hand to her chest as if it hurt so say it. “Because you needed the face of Catelyn Tully to say that she was wrong, to carry you through, because -” she stopped herself.

“Tell me. Don’t stop now. No more lies between us. Tell me,” he asked her eagerly.

“Because I was afraid.” She looked away as she said it. And it hurt more.

His eyes widened. “ _Of me?”_ His voice cracked as he said it.

“That you would turn me away. I was not the sister you wanted. I was afraid you would turn me away.” She was quick to clean the tear that rolled down her cheek.

“ _I would never_ -” he vowed, with all the strength in him without raising his voice.

“But you did.” She said it so resolutely that it took the air from his lungs. “Did you vow to take our home back? To give me justice, for what was done to me?” She moved her hand up, so it was sprawled over her scars, he wanted nothing more than to scream against the world and the gods – and himself. “Or was it only when he took Rickon and I threatened to do it myself.”

He covered his face with his hands, he couldn’t bare looking at her. “I had just come back from the dead, I just -”

“I understand Jon, I do,” she was quick to say. “But what about after? When you took the crown? When it was me that held your hand, when it was me that won that battle. What right had you over me? Wasn’t I right to be afraid? Of the resentment that you would bear for being my father’s bastard. Wasn’t I right to fear you? And after that? When you made me give my home to another monster, when you ignored me, when you made me bend?” Tears were running down her eyes and he just wanted to hold her, so much.

He knew she was right. She was always right about him, wasn’t she. Even when he didn’t know. Even when he didn’t want her to. He was so tired of lying to himself. He was exhausted of pretending.

“I wanted to keep you safe.” He nodded while she slowly shook her head. “I did, Sansa, I did. I just did it all wrong, yes, I know. But I did, I truly did.” He went to his knees before her, like he had, once before when she had visited him in his cell after his sentence. “The castle, the lands, you. I wanted it all, but you most of all.” Her eyes sharpened and he could tell how mad she became when she rose from her chair and turned her back on him.

“I bring everything don’t I Jon, so you wanted me more,” she seethed while her back was turned. “Every time you felt rejected, every time you were passed over by Robb, every time you weren’t loved enough. I would fix it all for you, wouldn’t I. _The key to the North_ ,” he could hear the tears in her voice.

“You know that is not true!” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her flushed against him.

She gasped but swallowed it down before she though he could notice. He had watched her for most of his life. He knew her. She looked between him and her arm, the little space he allowed between them, yet he didn’t let go and he knew she wouldn’t back down.

“It was _always_ you, even before it should have been.” His meaning was clear. Before he knew he was the dragon’s bastard. Since he placed his eyes on her at Castle Black and knew nothing but love for her, and after that, at the battlements in Winterfell when he knew lust.

“Is it because I look like her Jon? The woman who couldn’t love you,” she challenged him.

Jon laughed. He had wondered. Bastards were known to have those baseless thoughts. And Sansa had her mother’s face, and her bony hands. But Sansa could be even more cold than Lady Catelyn. And she used her gentleness like a weapon, to be taken away as punishment, given back as reward. She was sharp and she was unflinching. But when she smiled, _Gods,_ when he managed to make her smile – everything wasted away. Every moment at Castle Black, every knife they pierced inside him, every stare he had received for being Ned Stark’s bastard, every joke he had to endure, all the disgust he felt for being at Targaryen, all the bodies he was responsible of because of it – it all faded away.

He was glad to have come back to life to see her once more, to fall in love with her. He would have rather never have come back at all to break her heart, to disappoint her so. But he had and he could never make it right.

“No. It’s because you’re Sansa Stark, and it couldn’t be any other way. You are my heart.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “That didn’t serve me well, did it. I am not your heart, I wasn’t even your conscience. I was the broken girl in the tower begging you to save her. You wanted to be my hero Jon. You wanted the castle, the lands and most of all you wanted to be my hero, I think.” He let go of her then. “But then the castle and the lands were my own and I no longer needed rescue. You were no longer in charge and you _craved_ it. No matter how many times you claim you didn’t want it. Tell me I’m wrong Jon. Call me a liar,” she said imploringly.

He turned his back on her. What a terrible idea it had been to come here. His hands were shaking, a weight in his chest. _He should have never come_. He was undone by her. She saw everything, she knew everything, she spared him from nothing. She could be cruel in such a low tone, with such sweetness.

He had gone to Castle Black for the honor. For the stories. To leave Robb’s shadow. He left it to take his place. Robb had been her favorite brother. He had been her hero, he had been everyone’s hero. But he hadn’t saved her or Arya, he had left her in Kingslanding, to be married to the imp, to be abused by the boy King. Jon had ridden away from Castle Black to be what Robb couldn’t. He became the King of the North. That wasn’t enough, he had to be the Bringer of Dawn, he had to be the hero of Melisandre’s prophecies, so he would be worthy of her. He had to be everything he had wanted to be in his childhood. He wanted to be everything Robb could have been. He wanted to be worthy of everything – everything Robb hadn’t been. _There_. There it was the truth.

“You are just a man with a man’s failings, _but I would have loved you anyway_ ,” she told him softly behind him it only made him shake more. “I would have been the princess in the tower for you, I would have been your lady, I would have been your wife in all the truths there are, and I would have been happy for it, I would have swallowed what was left of my pride. But you wanted to be a hero, _more than you wanted me_. You made the choice for us. Not me.”

He turned back and took her face in his hands, could barely see her gleaming eyes behind the cloud of tears in his.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he promised her, his voice hoarse from the effort it took him to speak. “I can fix it Sans, I can. We will… I will - I will fix it.”

She placed her hand over his and leaned into his touch. “ _You can’t, dearest_. You can’t.”

 _Love is the death of duty. What is honor compared to a woman’s love_. He hadn’t known then. How true Maester Aemon’s words were. He should have listened better. He should have prepared to all the choices he would have to make. Ygritte. Daenerys. _Sansa_. _Duty was the death of Sansa’s love_. He should have known.

He lost whatever it was that had kept him standing until then. Whatever hope he had left. Whatever belief he had still, that he had made the right choices, or at least made the best of the only ones that were offered to him, it all left him. The tears could no longer be held and there was no reason to hold them. There was no more control to him, no strength, no will. He thought it would be kinder of her to drive a knife to his chest. Fairer too, since he had done it to someone before. Sansa took him by surprise then.

He would take to his grave that it was her that pulled him to her. How she tentatively placed her lips on his waiting for a reaction. That it was her that chased his tongue with hers after he crashed his lips against hers. How quickly they removed each other of their clothes and stumbled into her bed. By the candlelight there were barely any scars, but he ran his hands over her body to know each and every one, took comfort when she did the same to him.

There was something to be said of the way she threaded her hands through his hair before pulling him to her again, how hungrily she swallowed his moans. How he nipped at her neck until she groaned. They were nothing more than wolves in that moment, the though gave him unimaginable joy.

He spread her legs and was quick slide down the bed until his head was between them, his beard grazing her ties, how she only had the time to give him a confused glance before he put his mouth on her cunt and twirled his togue inside her and she fell back on the bed with a shudder, how he did it again and again.

“Look at me, Sansa.”

She did and he would always remember how she gasped when he placed a finger inside her wet folds and then two. How she arched her back when he started moving, how she moaned as he quickened his pace and she came undone before his eyes. He was glad to fall on his back and stay there if it wasn’t for the way she straddled his hips and placed him at her entrance, the way she held his glance as she sank into him. He was _hers_ , he had always been hers, nothing was clearer to him in that moment. He belonged there, inside her, at her command and will. He would never be full of her, the hunger for Sansa Stark would never cease. She rode him painfully slow and barely bothered to hide her smile at his groans. She ran her hands over his chest and finally had pity on him, quickening her pace, as he met her with thrusts of his own. He barely had the time to warn her before he spilled inside her, with her name on his lips and she once more came undone gloriously before his eyes.

They stayed there for the longest on times. Him, half hard still inside her and Sansa resting over his chest. He could do little more than smile, as he ran his hand up and down her back, soothingly and she sighed, like a pleased cat would. It didn’t take long until he felt his chest wet with her tears. There was a finality to it – to this moment – he could tell. A sense of the loss that was to come that could be felt in the air. _Duty is the death of love_.

He committed her to memory. Every freckle on her shoulders. Every scar on her ribcage. Every curve, every soft spot. Every little sound she made as she came. How at peace she seemed when she slept. How much peace she would feel when she found him gone. He grabbed his clothes and left before first light. And he started grieving over Sansa Stark, as he made the choice to love her better than he had till then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ll deal with the consequences of all of this next chapter. The wilding subject will be brought up next chapter too. 
> 
> About Jon, I understand how it would be preferable to some that he wasn’t the father of Sansa’s heir, I really understand, and you know how much a part of me would have liked him to suffer the agony of another man being the father of her child, but I had a plan for this fic and I had to go with it. In no way does this mean he will be forgiven, or anything forgotten. But it was very important that this went in this way for the Cersei&Sansa storyline.
> 
> This was also the first smut I ever wrote, it was more difficult than I expected it to be. Sorry about it.
> 
> As always thank you for your kind comments and I’m sorry if I disappointed anyone.


	6. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She would pray to Cersei too. Just this once, for she had been right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very critical of Tyrion in the beginning of this chapter in the Cersei conversation. You might want to skip it if you like him.

_Past_

" _But you never had him. Why,_ " she pushed harder.

" _You know why_."

Cersei laughed. A shrill laugh that resonated through the room. “You think that you would fall into bed with him and would turn into me? Just like that!” She laughed harder and shook her head.

“It wasn’t Jaime that made me into this. Well, not _only_ him.” She took a gulp of water from the cup she had in her hands. “He had his own part to play, surely, as I did in him. We were nothing more than golden and bright once – before Mother died.” She shrugged and stood from the table. “Resentment was built into us, you see. I wanted nothing more than a blade on my hands, to be a man with a man’s power. Jaime wanted tales of wonder, songs of knightly valor and honor, _courtly love_.” Neared the window and turned away from her. “And we wanted each other, desperately wanted each other. To join in one. To be whole again. But then he was bound to a mad King and soon after I was owned by a drunk one. He took to heart the things I had to do to survive and I took to heart the oaths he couldn’t keep to me, the things he would not do. We found each other very disappointing.”

 _Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon. The best one’s between your legs,_ Cersei had told her during the battle of Blackwater Bay. She had spoken it as the truth then, not meant in cruelty, but in the honesty, she found in the end of her wine goblet. Cersei had always made it her mission to tell Sansa the truth, the only truth that mattered, even if it was unkind, after Joffrey had killed her father.

Her parents had never told her the truth. Had never prepared any of them for what they would have to face outside the walls of Winterfell. Sansa and Arya had paid the highest price for that. Cersei had prepared her for Kingslanding. Cersei had prepared in case she was ever Queen. Cersei had told her the shocking, undeniable truth, that she was all alone and woman at that. No one would come to save her. And if they did it would be to use her. How she had pitied them both then, she still did.

“We loved each other in spite of it. Only a Lannister can truly love another Lannister.” _That was not true._ Sansa tilted her head to the side, knowing she wouldn’t see her. “I loved him more than myself some days. I wanted to _be_ him. To be father’s favorite. To bask in the glory of being the Golden Lion of Lannister, instead of the Light of the West. But we loved each other, even when it poisoned us rotten, even when I had to turn away from him. Even when it made us gag, and scream, and rage. We were _devoted_ to each other” she said it reverently, as if she had whispered it many times to herself.

Cersei held the cup close to her chest, like she used to do with her wine and Sansa knew in that moment that she would never tell her about Brienne, she would never be that cruel. She wouldn’t take her twin from her, the only lover that had mattered to her, the only loyalty she had depended upon. She wouldn’t steal it away in a pitiful attempt to tip the scales. There was honor to Sansa Stark, no matter what they might whisper behind her back.

She finally turned to look at her face. “Was it so with yours,” she seemed genuinely curious.

“ _No_. Not at all.”

Jon was Jon. He was brave, and he was reckless. Heroic and willful. Even if he could do so quietly, he still showed his every grievance on his face. With the clench of his hands, with his loud sighs. Sansa was dutiful. She was obedient. She aimed to please and _still_ , she was too loud, took too much space. Sansa showed nothing and still it was too much to bear.

“But we were disappointed by each other. Plenty and often,” she said it with an amused smile, there were no tears summoned by accepted truths.

They had both suffered, though. They had both taken blades against their skin. They had both been betrayed. They could join in that. Even if he had betrayed her and she had betrayed him in turn. A wolf following its own tail. They were wolves all the same. It united them. They would never act against each other. Not in truth. He would never raise a hand to her, and she would never let a blade touch his neck. Even if he let her be threatened, even as she let him be exiled. Their loyalty was a peculiar one. But it was there all the same – she could rejoice in that, even if it didn’t bring her peace at night.

They weren’t devoted to each other. Not like the Lannisters. Jaime went to Cersei. Jaime abandoned what could have been a good life, newfound honor and a kinder love, a steadier one, just to be in her arms. To die near Cersei. It must have seemed a better choice than to live without her. To die by his Queen even if he had fallen out with her. The Mother of his children meant more to him than whatever future he might have. Neither Sansa nor Jon were like that. Not anymore. They were Kings and Queens. They weren’t built around each other, like Cersei and Jaime had been.

Cersei frowned. She couldn’t not understand her. Neither could she, and she didn’t care to explain herself more this evening.

“I never knew him much, Jaime. Tell me about him.”

"He was ashamed of what he could be with me. Of the freedom I allowed him to be the Golden Lion of Lannister, to be who he was. My father loved nothing more than him. And Jaime looked up to no one more than the Sword of Morning – Arthur Dayne – how disappointing it must have been for him, when he discovered him nothing more than a man without conscience, awaiting orders from his king. Knights know little more than to obey. Than to hear a Queen scream in her chambers and be only concerned if the King stops laughing, if he is silent for too long. The _Kingsguard_.” She looked away from her and chuckled drily. “I wonder if they held my mother down so that Aerys could rape her. Father did too. That's why he was so enraged when he called Jaime to swear the oath, one of the reasons, at least." Sansa's eyes widened but Cersei wasn't waiting for a reaction. "When you choose your Queensguard, you must choose those who are loyal to you and only you. If you leave it up to their principles, you will find them lacking. They will choose your King before you, _every time_. They will choose who they think will win. Even Criston Cole turned against his Rhaenyra. And Arthur Dayne from his princess, to go and keep to your willful Aunt in her tower.”

Sansa thought of the Kingsguard that had beat her bloody. That had undressed her for all to see. That followed the orders of their King.

Cersei was waiting for an answer.

"I'll remember,” she promised. “Didn't Jaime...?"

"He served far away from my rooms. For the King's safety. For his own sanity. My body was the battleground were Baratheon and Lannister peace was forged. That peace had to be protected, I had to endure for the continuance of the seven realms. For the honor and pride of the West. The duty of Queens. I don't need to explain that to you sweetling."

Sansa's body was marred with scars of Northern independence, her body had been a testament to their victories – with Joffrey – and to their losses – with Ramsay. She needed no explanation at all.

"And your children?"

"What about them?" Her eyes sharpened at the mention.

"Did they know who their father was?" Her eyes softened all at once.

"Joffrey was _Robert's child_. It was why he killed cats, because his father loved to hunt. It was why he beat you. Because his father loved to beat me. I did try to teach him, you see, that he should never hit his wife, I did. My golden boy was uncontrollable and followed the father that had barely spoken to him at all. He did not know. Even if he did, I don't think it would have changed anything at all. _Myrcella_ knew _._ " The pride in her eyes was clear, her smile victorious. “She was the brightest of my children, Jaime told me she knew, that she was proud he was her father and not that drunken fool. _Tommen_ , my boy, he was a child. He should have never been King, he was too young, too soft, I should have looked after him better. They all had their claws in him by the time I was finished grieving my firstborn.” She shook her head, took a deep breath.

“He was jealous of my love for them. Jaime. He was scared of what I would do for them. And then, they started dying. One by one. They died. He had never cared much for them to begin with. But he loved Myrcella. Why wouldn’t he, she was the best of us. He loved Tyrion, though. That little monster. That loved nothing more than rape whores and pretend they liked it. That disgusting beast that sold _my daughter_ , that threatened _my_ children, _me_. He didn’t stop loving him for that, he didn’t even care. He was a fool when it came down to Tyrion. I could never understand why. But I was a fool too, I should have killed him when I had the chance, but the _Lannister blood_ … I was raised to protect it. There are lessons that never leave us.”

Her eyes caught hers and she didn’t let go.

“I would have made you a _good_ Lannister marriage. Not Joff, of course, but Lancel or one of the younger brothers. I would have never given him such prize. I would have never given you to that whoremonger, _my dove_ ,” she assured her.

She had taken to calling her that. She was used to little dove, and sweetling, that was common and usual. But sometimes, only sometimes, she would very softly call her her dove.

Sansa knew she meant it. It wasn’t for sympathy she said it. Cersei would have never given her to Tyrion. That pitiful man that raped whores and killed them for not loving him, that felt sorry for himself for not being loved for being dwarf, as if that was the reason. The selfish man that brought a conqueror to these shores just because he wanted to be her Hand, for his revenge against Westeros for not giving him his fair due. He had deserved his fate.

“And you, when did _you_ know?”

“You told me,” she reminded her. “You said that I shouldn’t expect the same devotion from Joffrey as you had had from Jaime.”

“That’s right. _I did_ , didn’t I.” She tilted her head to the side and eyed her appreciatively. “You never told a soul. You always kept to me so well.”

“Do you wish he had been a father to them?” Sansa pressed on.

“And teach them what?” Cersei raised a brow. “What could he do for them I hadn’t done a thousand-fold. I was their mother. Robert was their King, they looked to him not because he was their father. They knew only their mother. It was for the best. Can you imagine after all I did for them, after holding them inside me for nine moons. Splitting myself raw to bring them to the world. Ruining my body to feed them, and have them look up to – _Jaime_? How maddening it would be.” She shook her head vehemently. “It was me they looked to. Even Joffrey, he acted against my advice, often, yes. With your father, with you. Yet when he was unsure, when he was afraid, _my boy_ looked to me first. That kept me alive for many years, their _need_ for me. You’ll see. When you have them, you’ll see.”

_Present_

She was getting ready for the night. Had kindly sent the maid away. Had been doing it for quite some time. She didn't want them to know. Not until she was sure of what she was going to do.

She wondered what her family might have said. How her father might have felt dishonored. How her mother might have pitied her. How Robb...

She had tried to feel ashamed. Had tried to conjure the feeling from deep within herself. From when Arya embarrassed her, and Robb would laugh. From when Jon reprimanded her, and she would have to take it silently. She imagined what her lords might say but ended empty handed. A fatherless heir was better than no heir at all. They would mostly concern themselves with guessing who the father was.

Joanna was fatherless too. And she seemed so happy. So content. Her mother was enough for her. Sansa too had been mostly fatherless. She was old enough to admit that now. Mother was the one that took care of her. That took care of everyone really. Father concerned himself with the boys, with Robb mostly. And Arya. When he had time. Not with her and she had turned out perfectly fine. Joanna would have a sibling. And they would have the closest of bonds. And they would be equals, without resentment between them. One of her children with a father, the other without... No. That would not do.

She inspected her bump in the mirror. This was good. This was fine. This was her choice and no one else's. Trailed her fingers over the scars on her stomach. Considered how they would change form once the child was growing. How they would become hers and not his. That was a happy thought. Her body would only be hers and her child's. Of course, her body was already Joanna's. How her little hands fit so perfectly around her neck and over her chest, how the scars there seemed meaningless when they gave her comfort. How her little head fit in the crook of her shoulder. How she covered her face with kisses, like she learned from her mother. But this new child would erase other things. This child would turn her body hers and her children's, into a body no man had ever touched. How glorious, motherhood.

Theon would have been proud. Theon would have embraced her and congratulated her. Theon would have cried with joy holding her in his arms. He would have taken strength from this child growing inside of her, regaining her body for her. The same way she had taken strength from him for Joanna. Her little cub was a testament to him, she had been confident to love her because of him. She knew she would never cease.

She considered Jon, for a moment. Jon in is castle. Jon in his prison. Serving his sentence. She wondered what he would tell her to do. Would he have been furious that she would have a child he would never be able to claim? To see. To hold. She wondered if it would have hurt more were she to not keep it. To erase the remains of him from her life, from her body, from her bed. That seemed crueler in her opinion, but in truth, it surprised her how she barely cared. This had little to do with him. And everything to do with her.

The girl she once was would have been eager to tell him. Would have lifted his punishment and thrown a whole country into war just to live a song. Just to be kissed by his soft lips and lifted in the air by his steady hands as he claimed to the world the fatherhood of her children. The girl she had been would have settled for love.

She caught a glimpse of red hair in the mirror. The clearest of blue eyes. She wasn't a girl anymore. Hadn't been for the longest of times. She was a queen now, it gave her purpose. All that she had been through, all that she had survived had prepared her to be this. She commanded respect from her lords, love from her people and adoration from her child. That would have to be enough - in truth it was more than she had ever expected - it meant much more than the love of one man.

She thought of Cersei for a moment. Cersei would have smiled a victorious smile and called her sister, called her mirror, called her – daughter. Every selfish thing she did brought her closer to Cersei. Was it selfish to give the North the child they wanted without having to bear the husband they would impose upon her bed, her body, her throne, her freedom? She would not give them the choice. She had taken a child from a man who had neither the will nor power to hurt her. She had taken the choice from them. Was it selfish – most undoubtedly. Was it cruel – not for them. She was owed this. This one tiny freedom of choosing whose child to bear. She chose to bear her own and no one else’s. They owed her much more, yet she would only collect this one tiny debt. Cersei would have collected them all.

Lady Dustin came into her chambers not long after in the dawn of a cold sunrise. Much earlier than she would normally visit her so they would go over the affairs of the day.

"When I became your Hand, I did so because I thought we had an agreement between us," she said, placing her hands on her waist, like one would do to berate a child.

"We do, Lady Dustin."

"I thought I would trust you with my loyalty, my support. And you would gift me Stark _duty,_ instead of your blasted honor. I thought there would be honesty between us. As much as it would be considered proper between a Hand and his King, _Your Grace_ ," she said in a clipped tone.

She clenched her jaw and took hand to her stomach. "I was going to tell you."

"Shall I expect madness and lunacy? Shall I expect an inbred Stark, because Lannisters and Targaryens were simply not enough _Sansa_?"

Sansa frowned, for a moment she didn't remember what the North did not know.

"There will be honesty between us Barbrey. Because I trust your loyalty to me, to our cause, I will tell you that he is my cousin and not my brother. "

" _Oh_ , I see." That took her aback. And she dropped her hands to her sides. "Brandon?"

Sansa nodded. "Ashara Dayne. "

It wasn't that she didn't trust her. She did. Lady Dustin had been unfailing to her. In her quiet strength she had supported her and stood by her. And kept to her, faithfully. But her child could not be a Targaryen, would not be a Targaryen. She would have nothing to do with that blasted throne. Sansa had already risked too much to keep the secret of his parentage. Westeros was at peace because there were no Targaryens left. It would remain so. But she had to prepare for purple eyes. And speaking of Brandon, giving truth to the rumors that had always been about Ashara Dayne, of her father's infatuation with her as well.

It would speak to Barbrey, most of all, to the first lover she had, the man she had loved, the man who had failed her, the way her father had battered her body away for the chance of being closer to Winterfell – and _her heart_. She would keep her secret, the parentage of her child, she believed she would. But in case she didn't, it wouldn't be so grievous, so unbelievable, to call upon Dayne blood to explain it all.

"That explains very much. Your father truly was a fool." Sansa couldn't help but agree. "Should the child be born with the purple eyes of the Dayne’s?"

"The Tully blood is strong. Stronger than Stark blood." Four of the children of Catelyn Tully had been born with her coloring. "And Stark blood was stronger than... I'm confident there won't be an issue." She prayed there wouldn't be. She could paint the child's hair should it be required. She hoped she wouldn't have to. Tully blood was strong, she had to believe it. The Gods had to offer her something, they had to be benevolent, just this once.

She would go to the hot springs and pray upon the water. For the rivers to call upon her trout blood. For her mother to be stronger than her father. For Tully to conquer Stark and Stark to conquer Targaryen. Healthy blood to conquer rotten one. And she would pray for Whent blood most of all. For it was Minisa’s hair that followed all her Tully children. For Whent blood conquered both Tully and Stark blood. She would pray to her grandmother. To all the foremothers that had come before her. She would pray for a child of her own, that resembled no one more than her. She would pray to Cersei too. Just this once, for she had been right.

"And the father?" She pursed her lips in displeasure.

Sansa tilted her head to the side. "I am the dutiful Stark, aren't I?"

"You are. The prodigal daughter. I trust that you will continue to be so."

"My child has been fathered by a nameless wolf. Both my children will have a mother and we shall have no men in our halls, like the Mormonts. Is that agreeable, my Lady Dustin?"

“It is, Your Grace. I’ll prepare the feast so it can be announced. We wouldn’t want them to think you’re hiding something.”

“I trust you to do so, my Lady. Was he seen?”

It had been her gravest concern. That he would be seen in the walls. He had been disguised, yes, barely recognizable. Yet she had known him. It would be foolish to think others wouldn’t be able, were they to cross with him in the halls. But then the week went out with no whispers. Then the moon passed, and no one demanded for an audience with her. And then 3 moons and his name hadn’t even been whispered in her halls. Her own little birds would have told her. Yet, Lady Dustin knew.

“I haven’t slept well in years. In my unrest, I walked the halls near your chamber. No one but me saw. I would have been told had it been otherwise,” she informed her. Lady Dustin had little birds of her own, Sansa knew.

“Let us continue thus. Secrets shared by a King and her Hand.”

“ _My Queen_.”

Wylla’s face was apprehensive and she held her hands in front of her.

“Tell me,” she commanded her, as Lady Dustin narrowed her eyes beside her.

“Word has come from the Lord of Last Hearth. Three women were stolen from the village that housed one of the wilding trading posts – a mother, her two daughters,” she said.

Sansa clenched her jaw. “Let him know that we will ride at first light towards the wall and that he should meet us on the journey,” she informed her.

“Is that wise Your Grace, you are with child, couldn’t you send -”

She had allowed it. She had allowed the trading posts. The chieftains had come, they had given their word. _Free folk don’t lie_ , Tormund had told her _, not like your kneelers do_ , he had sworn. Just two trading posts, there weren’t much of them anyways. Just an experiment, an attempt at peace. Umber land would stop being raided and her people stolen, she had seen it as a chance, after so many battles between northerners and wildlings. After centuries of blood and strife. She thought the punishment would put fear into them, that they would lick their wounds and keep to their women. That a man could let go of his customs, of his violence, that for food he could control himself. She was wrong.

“ _No_. It is my fault, they will need me to pass the sentence. And I’m not nearly half my time. I will go, and you will go with me,” she told Wylla.

Sansa turned to Lady Dustin who nodded in agreement. Wylla would follow Lady Dustin as her Hand when the time came, she would have to prepare for these things. And she needed Lady Dustin to hold her castle and the lords that would surely come when they heard of what happened.

Wylla nodded solemnly. “Would a ride of 50 men suffice, Your Grace?”

“Yes, you may leave us to make the arrangements.”

Wylla curtsied and left.

“Send word to the Wall, I want the women there when I arrive and the culprits,” she told Lady Dustin.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to write yourself?”

Sansa shook her head. “They will see me soon enough. I’m leaving Joanna with you and my sister. If anything should happen to her -”

Lady Dustin nodded. “I’m aware of what would befall me, you can go in peace, as much as you can manage. If you go in black it won’t be noticeable and word wouldn’t have reached the wall of it, yet,” she advised her before leaving her to her thoughts in the quietude of her solar.

Joanna had screamed when she had given her to her sister. _No mama!_ _No!_ She must have though she was leaving her _._ Sansa had a phantom itch in her arms to grab her. She had never left her like this. And for such a thing… such a cruel thing. Her throat was burning just from considering what might have been done to these women, of what she would do if it had been Joanna. Of the wreckage she would cause had it been her daughter. Of what she had felt when it had been her. And here was this foolish man, his face blank and hands empty. Unconcerned. Unbothered.

"The men are nowhere I can find, vanished in the night," Tormund told her, when he showed himself completely alone.

" _Is that so_ ," her voice was dangerously low.

He made a mockery of her. Of her people. There was a rage inside her he would learn to fear.

"But we have found and brought the women, as you can see. In good faith, to keep our bargain."

Sansa hummed.

She turned towards the women. They had sunken eyes that told her more than words could. A mother holding her two daughters, close to her side. She could see ripped clothes underneath the fur they had given them to cover themselves, but only the mother’s. The younger one was barely a child, and the older one a little more than one they had their clothes on them, she could give thanks for that.

She went to them, took the mother's hands in hers. "I'm here to take you to Winterfell with me. Tell me, are any of the men here?"

She looked her in the eye, and shook her head

"How many were they?" she showed her two fingers. Sansa nodded, gave a gentle squeeze to her hand and turned back around.

"Very well.” She crossed her hands in front of her. “Let us begin with the punishment."

Tormund frowned. "Neither of the men are here."

"I'm aware. But Tormund, you are. You have vouched for your men, I'm sure you will do so again. You will take their place."

"Red-"

"Sansa-" she heard his voice.

She raised her hand and she could hear her men placing their hands on the pommels of their swords.

"An agreement was made between us. Yes? I would allow trading posts and there would be no pillaging, no stealing women and punishment should these terms not be met. You gave your word. The other chieftains gave their word. Yet you come here today without the men who have stolen these women, who have hurt these women. What did you think would happen? What did you think I would do? Forgive? Forget? These are _my_ people, and they will be given justice."

"I have returned them to you, haven’t I. They will learn, it will take its time, but they will learn, I’ll make it so. You cannot change a man's nature from night to day, Red. You have to be patient," he told her, as if she were a child.

"Then you shouldn't have tried to change his circumstances as well. We had a deal. One that would keep _your_ people alive, one that I was benevolent enough to agree to. You only had to do one thing to keep your word, to keep this treaty standing. Yet you chose to come here without the culprits. You chose to challenge me. You looked those women in the eye, and you thought your men didn't deserve the punishment. I'm looking you in the eye and telling you – you will pay the price for them."

"This is not justice Red." He took a closer step to her, Wylla was quick to place herself in front of her, defiantly. "This will give you _nothing_."

“On the contrary.” She gently pushed Wylla’s arm away. Stood toe to toe with him. “This will be a warning. That their leaders will suffer the punishments they evade. That my word has meaning, even if yours doesn’t, Tormund Giantsbane.” He clenched his jaw. “That promises between wildlings and kneelers have weight, because I make it so. My people will know I protect them. Just like you protected yours today, isn’t that so?” She tilted her head to the side and felt both Stark men and Umber men behind her stand in preparation. “You will be gelded today by force or will. And only when those men are returned to me to suffer their even greater punishment, will I consider allowing trading posts again. And until then your people will starve, for the choices you made here today. You have my word.”

He took a deep breath. “Very well. I have sons and a daughter, Red. I’ve given use to my balls, you can take them at your pleasure.”

“Me?” She chuckled and shook her head. “No. It will be _Jon Snow_.”

“Must it be me?” he sounded almost resigned as he said it. _How curious_ , she had expected more of a fight.

“I’m afraid so. They respect you. They love you. It was why they felt emboldened to defy the North, trusting you would save them. It was why he came to Winterfell in the first place to ask for my charity. Because you are his friend. It must be you. So they will know again that the Commander of the Night's Watch does not serve them," she explained carefully. Her eyes looking over his features.

He looked over her shoulder, towards the red bearded man. "He's not a bad man. Not at all. He wanted to protect his people, I suppose."

"He won't do it at the expense of mine. And he didn't protect his people. He protected a few bad men and left his people to suffer the consequences."

He sighed. "It's true. Very well. _I serve at the pleasure of the Queen in the North_ ," he told her solemnly, in a thick northern accent.

Sansa frowned then. "Are you - _well_?"

He seemed very demure. Very compliant. Quiet. So very unlike Jon. He loved this man. She knew it to be true. He trusted him, she knew that as well. Yet he had accepted to maim him so very easily.

He gave her a small, weak smile. "I am."

He finally looked her in the eye then. He had avoided it ever since she arrived, but she could imagine why. Maybe it was the shame. Or regret. Perhaps even longing. She hadn't thought much about it. She was there as a Queen. Not as Sansa.

" _Are you with child_?"

She was wearing thick black robes. She hadn't even taken her cape off, for fear it would make it noticeable – _Wylla_. Her fierce Wylla had placed herself in front of her when Tormund had moved forward. Her arm open, decisively, purposely, in front of her bump. She hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment.

She gave a solemn nod. Waiting for a burst. But his face remained the same.

"Who does the North - "

"I have been blessed by the old gods. The light of the moon and a spirit of a great wolf have given me a child. There are songs about it. They're quite fetching too," she smiled.

He gave a small chuckle, but then his face became sad. "I'm sorry, I should have been more careful.”

"You shouldn't be. Not about this. The North needed an heir, and I would never marry again. Everyone is very rested now."

They were, truly, they were. People had feasted and sung. Drank heavily and made thoughtful wishes of good fortune. Her people had made offerings and prayed to the gods, old and new, for healthy pups and strong ones. Their fear of inheritance wars had left them.

"I thought Argella would follow you."

"They wanted a child of Sansa Stark. It was safer to the line of succession."

Realization dawned on his eyes, it made her sad that he would come to that conclusion, but she had thought of it herself. A thousand times. She played even when she didn't want to. It shamed her to know it. " _Oh_ , I understand."

Sansa chucked quietly. "You don't. I could have chosen others. Safer choices."

"With better blood," he pointed out drily.

She nodded. "Without a doubt."

"Then why?" he asked softly, without accusation.

She was very calm while she said it. There was a peace to her, regarding him that she had never felt before.

“I know everything about you Jon. I know every flaw and misdeed, I know every virtue and good deed. I know who you are at the core of your being. I shan’t be much surprised by a child of _our_ blood,” she whispered. “There is bravery in you that I lack. Even if misguided.”

“Don’t be humble. It doesn’t suit the Unbent Wolf,” he tried to jest.

Sansa frowned but ended up smiling. “You’re strange. I expected you to be cross with me. I expected you to rage.”

“I have served the Queen in the North. I have _finally_ done my duty.” He laughed.

Sansa rolled her eyes. “If you like to hold on to your resentment, surely. If you loved me, I think not.”

“I do. And, if it brings you any semblance of joy to carry this child, it brings me more joy than you can ever understand. I never thought I would have a child, but when I did, I pictured you,” he said it very unexpectedly. With a certainty that took her aback. “I have decided to love you better now, I’m determined to at least keep that oath.”

“Have you now?”

He nodded. “Falling you leaves us both in impossible positions. Breaks our family apart. And… -” he swallowed harshly “- duty is the death of your love, Sansa. It’s the least Stark thing about you, but it is what defines you. I will stop fighting against it now.”

Her face fell.

“Should the child be born with unwanted features?” he asked in an effort to end her silence.

“Then you will be the son of Ashara Dayne and Brandon Stark, for the continuance of peace. For our safety and survival.” She took her hand to her stomach and his eyes followed longingly.

He nodded. “By your command.”

“Just like that?” she almost shrieked, very unlike herself. “You spent two years refuting and ignoring me, and all it took was an oath?” 

“You have turned survival into a weapon, Sansa. Against all odds you have known better. Against all enemies you have endured. No one can protect you better than you, now that I know that, that I have learned it. Now that I have accepted who you are, and who you are to me, I can love you better. Because, I know how.”

“Tell me then. How does one love Sansa Stark,” she was eager to know, she had no idea herself.

“One loves you by doing their duty by you. By not forcing you to fight for yourself, by yourself. I don’t want to fight against you, I don’t want to be your opponent and then still have you turn up in the end to save me. I want to fight beside you. For you, or with you, whatever I’m allowed. I won’t doubt you again.” He carefully took her hand in his once he assured himself she wouldn’t take it back. “So, if you want me to maim my friend for the safety of your people, I will do so. And if you want me to lie about my parentage for you and the child’s safety, I will. And I will stay here in the wall and not beyond, so you don’t have to suffer the consequences of me not being here.”

“You’ll never meet her,” she told him, wanting for a reaction.

“I’m aware. She has no need of me when she has you. Not unless she wants to learn how to fight,” he tried to jest.

“She’ll never know who her father is,” she pushed harder.

“If it keeps her safe.” He kept his calm and only shrugged. “How do you know it’s a girl?”

“I just do.”

“What will you name her?” he asked instead.

“Something northern. Something old. Something that won’t be heavy on her.”

“Good.”

They stood there for a while. Peacefully. Blamelessly. Looking over the abyss of what could have been, if only he had been this person before. Someone who did their duty by her. It was unnerving that it could be like this. That this had been an option all along. How disappointing, except that it wasn’t. It wasn’t an option before. He had been a King, a King who could do no wrong and listened to no one, and she, one of his subjects who deferred to him.

He would have never become like this hadn’t it all happened precisely like it did. Hadn’t the failings been so great that they forced her to act. Hadn’t the punishment been so severe that it forced him to reconsider his choices. There was no purpose to be taken from staying in the past anymore, nothing more to learn from it. She loved him, but her duty was stronger, bore more weight. He loved her but had only now realized how to. _Duty was the death of her love_ , it settled something inside her. It resonated deep within her soul. It seemed so, so very honest. _Duty was the beginning of his_.

In the same room where it had all begun. Between a bowl of soup and a mug of ale, was the place where it would end.

She took a deep breath and ended the peace, taking her hand and herself from him. “Tormund is waiting. Let us see you doing your duty by me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for the delay, but my law exams are starting, and I have to focus more time on studying. And in all honesty the reaction to the last chapter made me sad, I was expecting it but maybe not to the degree that some of you would give up completely on the fic. It just made me want to step back a little from writing this. But I’m back. 
> 
> That thing Cersei said about finding Sansa a good Lannister marriage is actually in the books, she thinks about it during the walk of atonement. I always found it so interesting. Anyway, Tormund is not really the Tormund we know and love from the show. I have no issue with him, I just needed him to be like this for the plot. I also hope you liked my Westerosi styled explanation for dominant and recessive genes, I think Ned Stark would be proud. 
> 
> I’ll be focusing on the new baby and Joanna and Casterly Rock in the next chapters now. And Cersei as always.
> 
> Thank you as always for all your lovely comments and for continuing to read. I wish you all happy Holidays.


	7. Remembrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The North will always remember you

_Past_

“Tell me Sansa. What will happen once this child is born?”

It was a particularly gloomy day. The fog had settled around Riverrun and there was an unpleasant smell of humidity in the air. Cersei would almost seem ridiculous, if such a thing was possible, in her yellow robe, a vision of light in a grey day. Sansa was much more suited to these days, in her pale blue dresses that had belonged to her mother. Her hair carefully braided in the practical style common in the Riverlands. The one Catelyn had preferred.

They had been here for almost two months. There was nothing more for Sansa to do. The treaties had been drafted, agreements made. Whispered alliances sealed in dark halls. They were just waiting now. For the child to be born. They still had a month to go if the child were to be born on time. Sansa could have left, in truth. This was now a matter of the South. Both she and Arianne could have left and watched from a far what would happen to the child of Lannister. They both could have washed their bloody hands from it. But as Arianne made no effort of leaving, Sansa was relieved not having to go back to the empty halls of Winterfell, having to await ravens of what would happen to her first, albeit unwilling, mentor. 

“We’ve spoken of it a thousand times. Would you have me repeat? The circumstances have not changed.”

It had been the only luck Cersei had been gifted. Her brothers were dead. Her uncle Kevan and his eldest son lost to the wildfire and his youngest to the war. Genna Lannister’s Frey sons had been lost to Arya’s poison and Genna had died not long after. Tygett Lannister found his death in the war against her brother, and his son to the pox. Gerion Lannister had been lost at sea far before any of these wars could have taken him. A Lannister heir was most desired, for the legacy it bore. It wasn’t that the Western Lords didn’t want to take control of Casterly Rock, it was that the West was in shambles and any that would dare would be lost to the weight of it. And to the complains of their fellow lords that would surely come as soon as they dared to take on the load. One would overthrow the other and the one after that, and never-ending cycle none of them could afford. A Lannister heir though, the fear attached to the name, the family that had built and glorified them – a blameless child to carry all the burden so they wouldn’t have to. Nevertheless, a lord, and not a bastard born of incest.

Cersei shook her head. “Have _you_ decided how I am to die?” she asked venously, and Sansa rolled her eyes without looking away from her sewing.

The Reach would be glad to cut out her tongue and send her to the silent sisters like her father had done to the Tarbeck women. Yet the Stormlands considered this too light of a punishment. Dorne wasn’t opposed to poison, but the Riverlands were vehemently against it in their halls. The Vale would prefer a clean public execution and the North tended to agree in lack of other options. They hadn’t agreed on anything yet. Bran hadn’t decided on her future for the time being. Sansa wondered if Joffrey had planned her father’s execution with this amount of care – she had no doubt he did not. A simple fancy of the moment, devoid of any careful thinking.

“How would you prefer it?”

“Should I prepare my own execution as well, little dove,” Cersei smiled then, but it didn’t cover the underlying fear she seemed to feel as her hands trembled ever so slightly. “I thought I would have taught you better than that. Then again -” she shrugged “- you had my little brother executed. Did he scream Sansa, did he beg? You never did tell.” Her eyes shone as she asked, by emotion or vindication she could not tell.

Sansa sighed, yet indulged her. “He appealed quite a bit. Spoke of the wisdom he could still pass on. Of the skills for statecraft he still possessed. They fell on deft ears, of course, and a couple of laughs. Then he tried speaking to my good heart, how gentle of a husband he had been, amongst the others.” Sansa rolled her eyes. “Not every lord attended. He had been left without his drink for a long while and he mostly blubbered by the end, of his misfortunes in life and so forth. Rather a stain on all that Lannister pride.”

Cersei grimaced. “Lannisters should beg for nothing. Yet I do suppose, if there was any a time for it, it would be then. And if there was anyone to do it to, it would surely be you,” she muttered.

Sansa took pity on her, though she tried not to make it very plain.

“Bran is a good man. He wouldn’t allow anything undignified, or overtly cruel” she promised sincerely.

Cersei hummed. “Would _you_?”

Sansa raised a brow, taking offense. “Maybe I should have the bards play the Rains of Castamere as you go. Unless you would like to sing it yourself, that can always be arranged,” she told her gravely. “You know how much I love songs.”

Cersei narrowed her eyes and laughed to her surprise. “ _Hear me roar_. They would write of it for ages.”

“They will write songs either way. The last ruler to have sat on the Iron Throne. They’ll remember, worry not,” Sansa told her absentmindedly, as she pulled on a thread.

“The Targaryen whore never sat on it. Be sure that’s written down somewhere. It would be ever so shameful to have them say that Dothraki girl took the throne. And such a tiny, foolish thing too.” She grimaced.

Sansa couldn’t help but smile. Never would she let it be written that another Targaryen ever sat on the Iron Throne after Mad King Aerys. Daenerys had tried and Daenerys had failed. She would go down in history as the throneless queen, the Maker of Chains, the Monster of Kingslanding. She trusted Arianne would make sure of it, even if she was unable to. Elia’s children would be remembered as the last Targaryen heirs to the Iron Throne. Viserys would be remembered as the Beggar King and Daenerys as the Mad King’s daughter. Or perhaps he would be the one to be remembered as her sire.

“Do you think they’ll speak of how I had a hand in your making? How the Lion Queen corrupted the little wolf. Turned the sweet little lady into a ravenous woman awaiting her time to steal a crown,” she almost seethed as she said it. A serpent studying her prey. If Cersei had to chose anything but a lion, Sansa was sure a snake would do.

“I stole nothing.” She shrugged and looked up from her sewing. “ _Winter is coming_. I awaited my turn, was it not?”

Robb had been King, and Jon, and Bran. She came from a line of Kings. The Kings of Winter. It was no fault of her own that no woman had ever received the title. And her people wanted a crown atop her head and her voice to lead them into Spring – they needed her – and were not prideful enough not to admit it. It would be silly not to accept her simply because she was a woman. Had she been a man, they would have offered it much sooner. She bore no shame in it. Not a drop.

Cersei hummed. She wasn’t preparing for a fight today. Only a little bickering to keep her spirits. Sansa would do nothing but oblige. It kept her mind sharp, in these times of peace. And there was always something to learn from this woman, who stood the test of men.

“ _Family, duty, honor._ Fairly easy to keep to. Clearer words than winter is coming, one tends to remember the state of the seasons.” She scrunched up her nose.

Sansa raised a brow. “ _Hear me roar_?”

“A show of strength, of course.”

Sansa sighed and conceded. “ _Winter is coming_ is solemn, the promise of the inevitable. Yet, I would much rather _The North Remembers_.”

“Yet, it didn’t,” she pointed out, sharply.

“Some did.” Old Nan that had died for her. The women that had presented her with all the tansy tea they had arranged for her but couldn’t deliver to her rooms under Bolton rule. How they had cleaned a bathtub full of blood and not a whisper of it ever went through Winterfell’s halls. Not even Jon had heard of it. “And I’ll remember for the ones that didn’t. A wolf’s memory.” For the Umbers and the Karstarks, for the Glovers and even the Mormonts, who didn’t _quite_ remember their oaths.

“Will you remember me? Your beloved Queen. Once they try to erase my name from history. When they call me witch and whore. As they will no doubt do to you when it becomes your time. When your beauty has left you, many years from now. When they see your face stricken, your breasts sagging and the silver lines on your body, far from the goddess your youth and victories have made you. When they forget all that you have conquered _for_ and _from_ them. Will you remember me, dove, as I once was, or as I am now?”

She heard the warning in her voice. As she now was, Cersei had one day been. They had loved her too once. When she was young and dutiful. For how little time she lasted against the nest of vipers of Kingslanding, against brute hands and a bleeding mouth. But they were not the same. No matter how much Cersei treasured to call upon the resemblance, especially now, that Sansa stood above her. They were not the same. Cersei saw herself above everyone, it had cost her the most when she had found herself without allies, utterly alone. They were cut from the same cloth. Yet they had been molded differently. It didn’t pain her to admit it, at least in the comfort of her own mind. Sansa would not make her mistakes.

“When they teach my child to hate me and everything I have achieved. When they teach the child to hate herself for she came from me and mine own rotten blood and ambition.” Her eyes were sharp and unrelenting. “When they take your own child from your arms one day and pray for your death so they might teach them themselves. When they turn her against you -” she coughed to hide the crack in her voice.

Sansa clenched her jaw at her implication. “You need not fear my own appointed lords’ loyalty. And I will raise my own children, if it is such a concern to your _tender_ heart. Love is a sweet poison, but it will kill you all the same. _Love no one but your children, on that a mother has no choice,”_ she told her bitterly. “I remember all your lessons.”

Cersei smiled and leaned back, like a pleased lion would. “I hope so, my dove. That you hold them close to your breast so they will feel no better than when they are near it. That they will listen to no voice with more attention than your own. I hope they won’t stray. Children always turn against their mothers first when they stray. They would turn against their fathers too, if only they saw them more often.” Cersei shrugged with a smirk on her lips. “You will be careful, though. You will hold them close to you and whispers sweet words in their ears. Feed them at your own breast, like I did mine, and teach them about duty and honor like only you can. _If only my child_ was as lucky as yours will be.” She gently patted her protruding belly and turned away from her. “You are always so careful. Ever since your youth – bright eyed and terrified, and ever so careful, even with me.”

“Especially with you,” she pointed out, making her turn back to her.

Cersei almost scoffed. “Dare only speak the truth to me Sansa Stark. You were quiet, yes, but you weren’t any more careful with me. On the contrary.” She leaned forth and took a lock of her hair between her fingers. “Was anyone particularly unkind to you when I was near? Did they bother and torment you? Didn’t you feel safer when I was in a room Sansa?”

Sansa clenched her jaw and said nothing. When Cersei was there Joffrey never beat her. When she was there people ignored her but did not mistreat her. She was the Queen’s little pet more than she was ever Joffrey’s. And no, Cersei wasn’t kind, in the way that she didn’t say soothing things. Yet it wasn’t a habit that she said things deliberately to harm her. To teach her, to shock her. The harm was left to Joffrey, and the Kingsguard and even Tyrion, when they had married. She remembered Shae’s words after all these years, _maybe she hates you less than everyone else, maybe she is jealous of you._

“You don’t have to answer dove, these things are hard to reconcile with the truths we tell ourselves to survive. Me being the evil Queen was easier to deal with, I had my own truths about you as well.” She gently patted her cheek and Sansa was almost chocked with both the contact and the hidden addition that the great Queen had been wrong about something Sansa did not know. “You will be there, when they kill me,” she said all of the sudden.

“Of course.” _Where else would I be_.

“Good. It should end between the two of us. It’s only right, don’t you think?”

_Present_

It wasn’t the worst pain she had been through. Not barely, not at all. But it was uncomfortable.

In the weeks before she could barely go up a slight of stairs without losing her breath. She was so swollen she couldn’t see her feet nor sit at her desk, which made her depend far more upon Lady Dustin than she was comfortable, Wylla as well. Arya had never reached this size and by the gods she envied her. But then she remembered how little Argella had been, how little she still was, what a little thing she was in her father’s arms and thanked the gods for her plumbness.

She had been afraid they would start treating her like nothing more than a breeder as she made the North’s heir inside her. Just a woman, swollen with child and would mistake her orders with moodiness, her anger with sickness. She had been terribly afraid they would stop seeing her as a Queen. That they would start plotting her death to take her child. She knew it as a paranoia placed there by whispers of a well-known voice and fear for a well-loved child. But by the gods she could not help herself away from them.

Lady Dustin had seen it first, like she did almost everything, swore allegiance to her to her dying day, upon the grave of her dead husband and sister, just to make her more comfortable. Made her pay attention to the good wishers and to the people who sang her name and blessed her with prayers and little offerings. The people that would rise for her, should any unfortunate lord try and depose her. Then she went over every name with her, every lord and lady that could possibly try and harm her, if they had the means, if they had the motive, if they had the courage. They went over every possibility and every scenario and in the end Sansa breathed deeply with relief and looked at Barbrey with softer, grateful eyes, as the old woman smiled kindly at her and patted her hand soothingly in a way she had never imagined her able.

Barbrey had stood beside her, as the midwives made their way inside her chambers. Arya would stay with Argella and Joanna so she wouldn’t be scared of the commotion, it had all been settled weeks before.

Sansa forcefully grabbed the midwife closest to her, Dacey, when she saw them whisper conspicuously with each other, the same way they had done with Arya.

“If you have to choose between me and the babe -”

She smiled a motherly smile, the one Catelyn gave her when she did something silly but well-meaning, as she sat on the bed, her bony hands putting pressure on just the right spot in her back, making her moan with relief from the constant pain.

“We will choose you, Your Grace. Matters not what you say now my dear, it will be the both of you or only you.” The sureness of her words silenced whatever Sansa could say. Not even Barbrey had ever spoken to her thus since she had been made Queen.

Another midwife, Sarra, the older one of all, took her arm. “Up, my lass. You’ll see it’s easier if you’re up.” Both of them took her by the arms and walked a little with her.

“There will be no need of it. You’re a strong one lass, you’ll carry you both through. And we’ll carry you,” she promised her, her grey eyes on hers and a gentle, callused hand running circles on her back.

 _She wanted her mother_. Nothing seemed cleared to her in that moment, with that old woman’s eyes on hers, her careful hands, the sureness of her words. She wanted her mother – either of them would do, she assured the gods in her pain.

Catelyn would have braided her hair back, with her steady long fingers, like she used to do when she was sick, Sansa could still remember her elegant hands on the days she couldn’t remember her face. Would have taken cold cloths upon her skin. Spoken softly of the babe she would soon have in her arms. Made promises of good memories to be had ahead. Of a beautiful and healthy babe, of ten fingers and ten toes. Of good loud lungs and a strong and steady heart. She would have prayed _– gentle mother, strength of women, help our daughters through this fray_.

A sharp pain took her by surprise, and she squatted on the floor.

“ _That’s how you do it_ ,” she heard someone encourage, from behind her.

She held strongly to both women and soon Sarra was replaced by a younger one as she took the place in front of her.

She thought of Cersei. She could see her in front of her, as clear as the midwife, the memory of her on her birthing bed. The guttural sounds she had made, the rage, the _desperation_ , with which she had made them. How she had grabbed her hand and squeezed it until she could no longer feel it, as she had leaned against the stone wall and taken Sansa with her, as soon as she promised to take Joanna. How long she had endured the child fighting inside her to be sure she would be safe. How strongly she had clang to her as the midwives had to pull the babe out.

They hadn’t taken their eyes from each other once. Cersei had nothing more to exchange for the safety of her child than her own pain, and how she had gifted it to Sansa, presented it on a silver platter as if payment for whatever pain she had caused her in her childhood – _See? Do you see what made me cruel? The pain I endured, the pain I would cause –_ she could almost swear she had heard her say it then _._ How she showed her everything in her eyes, every unshed tear in those last months, every bruise and cut she kept close to her heart, all the fear. Everything that kept her standing for all her years would be used _there_ – every grievance that had fueled her rage, the pettiness that had kept her fighting, the terror that had kept her moving – to bring her child to the world.

“ _This is nothing little dove, push._ ”

To Myrcella, Cersei might have acted much the same way as her mother would to her. She would have been soft, she would have been gentle, as much as she could only manage to be with her golden children. _No_. She would have been different to her, not cruel, for she was never truly cruel to her, not like she was to others. She would have spoken of sharpers pains, excruciating ones, reminded her this was nothing like it. This was creation. It stung in a kinder way. There was victory to be had ahead and Sansa was _so_ very good at winning.

“ _Push harder_.”

She would have spoken of every terrifying thing that could happen to her babe were she not there to witness it. Would have speared her no gruesome detail, no drop of blood. Would have candidly imagined ever possibility, how imperative it was that she kept on living. That she would push this child out and keep herself to use as shield for her children.

 _“One last time. Push_.”

Cersei would have made sure Sansa was spiteful enough, fearful enough, to hold on with everything inside herself. Cersei would have made sure she survived.

She let go of the breath she was holding when she heard the most wonderful cry.

“What a beautiful girl, Sansa,” Barbrey told her as she gave the babe to her, once she was settled in her bed.

And _oh_ , was the Tully blood strong. She had a tuff of red hair and she went quiet in her mother's arms. Sansa said thankful prayers for the red hair and her grey eyes. Her own nose and her mother’s cheeks bones. The relief was so overwhelming she could do little more than start to cry.

Sansa had spent a long time considering her child's name. Lyarra had been much though about but it was too similar to Lyanna and she would have none of the weight of it upon her daughter. She ran her fingers through the Stark family tree. All the Stark ladies. The Sansa before her and her sister, Serena, whose rights to Winterfell had been taken away by their uncles, she was sure. A Serena should have been the ruling lady of Winterfell, another Serena would be the reigning queen.

“Bring Joanna and my sister,” she asked one of the younger midwives before she left the room to take the bloody cloths.

Arya had berated her that she should be also considering male names. That boys were a possibility. She had adamantly refused. The babe had been so easy, so quiet and barely noticeable, traits that belonged to no man. Sansa Stark hadn't the body to bear any more men. The gods were cruel, yes, and they would give her a daughter, for daughters suffered much more quietly than sons and far more.

"Let them know. The future queen is born. Serena Stark of Winterfell. The blood of wolves and trouts and nothing more. Let the bells ring," Sansa commanded never taking her eyes from the bundle.

“By your will, Your Grace,” Barbrey said as she left the room.

"And to the wall? What shall be known in the wall?" Arya asked carefully, with Joanna propped up on her hip, the girl hiding her face in her neck.

"Nothing more or less than the rest of the world."

"Sansa... " she took a deep breath but nodded. “As the queen commands.”

Arya had been particularly quiet about the subject. She had known, as soon as she discovered she was with child, she had known. She hadn’t prodded or berated her. She had only looked at her with such a sorrowful look that nearly made her cry. On this Sansa had become the rebellious one, one child of lions and another of wolves, fatherless children. And there stood Arya, with her own child, married under the heartree, even if only after the birth. Her family would have surely been confused with this turn of events. Her father most of all, for he would have sworn that the wolf blood was all in Arya.

“Joanna look at me,” Sansa asked of her first babe, that hid herself on her sister, the sight of her mother so uncomposed most likely scared her, it was much like this she had seen Cersei too on her deathbed. Could she remember. “Come meet your _sister_ , my love,” she said it loudly and purposefully.

She noticed of how the midwives still in the room perked up as she said it. It wasn’t unusual for women to change around wards as they had children of their own, the priorities shifted. It was fairly common, and she would not have them think she loved Joanna any less, that they should change their behavior around her.

“Look at her Jo, don’t make your mother sad,” Arya told whispered in her ear.

Joanna carefully took her face from the hidden comfort of Arya’s neck to take a look at her. Scrunched up her nose in mistrust and all of the sudden started to cry. Her quiet babe, howling in distress.

For once in their lives, neither she nor Arya quite knew what to do.

Dacey step forward then, as she finished drying her hands on a clean, new apron. Easily took the child in her arms, from a surprised Arya. She was a hero from tales now, and the smallfolk weren’t usually comfortable around her.

“She’s just a bit freighted, that’s all.” She ran a hand up and down her babe’s back soothingly which settled her a bit, nearing the bed. “Her mama looks different and she doesn’t know what to think.” She placed Joanna on her free side, the girl eagerly held on to her middle and hid her face in her still swollen belly. “You look different, but you smell the same, she’ll come around.”

“Thank you,” she told her earnestly, squeezing her oldest child against her.

The woman waved away her courtesies. “We all need a little help, Your Grace,” she said, the midwives going back to calling her by her title now that the babe was born.

She had wanted to have the Maidenfort – formerly known as the Dreadfort – built into a school, a Citadel in the North, but not for Maesters, no. A Citadel for midwives, for women to learn the healing crafts. These women that kept all of them alive, that brought generations onto the world. Sarra, who was there as her grandmother, Lady Lyarra, had given birth to her father. Who had taught what she knew to Dacey, who helped deliver Sansa herself into the world, who had taught countless others. Who today had come purposely to her, for their hands were wiser and trusted no one else’s on their Queen. These midwives far more knowledgeable in childbirth and children and women, than any man who spent a lifetime in the Citadel could ever be. She would give it to them, these women who had saved Arya and countless other women. Who might have saved Lyanna if only they were there, perhaps even Joanna Lannister, if their voices could have run louder than the maesters in the room. Turn the Dreadfort into something that helped bring life into the world, destroy Bolton legacy and build their own. She would have to wait a bit more, she was too early in her reign, but she would accomplish this. On her honor as a Stark she would, on her duty as a Tully.

“I thank you all for your service to your Queen. You have been most invaluable to the North and your services will never be forgotten while I live,” she told them all and bowed her head to them in respect.

Dacey smiled and bowed lowly, quickly cleaning a tear, as the other midwives bowed with her, shock crossing their features and some gasps being heard at the gesture.

“You honor us, Your Grace. The North will _always_ remember you,” Sarra promised then with a kind smile, before bowing one more time as she made all the midwives leave the room to give her space.

Sansa breathed deeply as she was left alone with her children and her sister in her chambers.

Arya smiled kindly. “They will never forget that Sansa.”

“I will never forget what they did for us,” she told her as she squeezed her hand.

“Might I send him a raven sister? If only to say Serena is a Tully through and through and that you are well?” Arya asked softly, sitting by her on the other side of the bed, Joanna tugged between them taking curious hidden glances at Serena who was on her breast.

“He will never be her father Arya, you know this. He most likely will never see her. Is it not kinder to let it be?” she truly asked, not knowing what was best.

Arya shrugged. “It might give him strength to keep to his duty, if he knows the much bigger purpose it now has. I think it would be kind to let a man know he has a daughter than to let him find out by word of mouth.”

Sansa sighed. “I don’t wish to be cruel. I don’t. I didn’t choose him as the father because I wanted revenge. I won’t say there wasn’t a part of me that felt terribly fulfilled by the knowledge that I had broken his heart too. Yet I choose him because I didn’t think I would ever allow anyone to touch my body that I didn’t know better than myself. And I knew Jon better than myself. I am a player Arya,” the confession brought tears to her eyes, “they have made me a player, all of them. Cersei and Petyr, Tyrion and Margaery, all of them. And without meaning, they made me the best one. But now there is no game at play and I am still a player and I cannot stop. I see hidden intentions everywhere. I see plans being itched. I see everyone’s desires and I play.”

“Sansa…” she whispered.

She couldn’t stop now that she had brought this to life. When she was finally able to be honest with Arya about the decision that she had made.

“When I met Jon again, I knew he would go to battle unprepared. I knew he would take the crown when it was offered to him. I knew he would break my heart before he did. And I ignored it. So many people died because I chose not to play the game for Jon Snow. Not to play the game inside these halls, to honor these Stark ghosts who have done _nothing_ for me. But then Daenerys arrived, and the choice was taken from me and now I cannot unmake it. I am terrified that if I stop playing my children will be taken from me and everything I have built will crumble. Because I have seen what happens when people stop playing well, Arya. I have seen a proud Golden Queen being unmade into a woman dying on her birthing bed clinging to me for mercy for her child. I have seen the best player in Westeros kneeling, begging me not to kill him. I have seen Tyrion Lannister crying as his head was cut off…”

She cleaned the tears from her face the best she could, as they kept on running.

“I could have chosen others Arya. But they would have wanted something from me. And they could have _demanded_ it from me. I am a Queen, that does not make me untouchable. And Jon could do nothing of the sort. Jon loved me, in a way only man who has been unmade could, and he was at the mercy of my love. He couldn’t harm me in any way. And I _craved_ to be loved like that. I craved to be loved without the possibility of being owned, of being harmed, of being used. And I took it. I took it without giving anything back. And I am not ashamed Arya, I am not,” she cried as she confessed it.

There were tears running down Arya’s eyes as well. “Could you not perhaps have found love, Sansa? Could you not have built it, sister? Like father and mother did.”

“In how many years Arya? How many would I be allowed to have before a child was demanded of me? And what husband would love Joanna in the same way they would their trueborn children? Who would love her like I do? And wouldn’t my power diminish just by being married? Even if they did not wish it so, even if they were loyal and abiding consorts, wouldn’t my lords look to them if I were to be disagreeable in my rulings? Wouldn’t I always be in danger of being cast aside? I made the safest choice with the cards I have been dealt. My children are all mine and no one else’s. And I rejoice in it, Arya. I rejoice that they will be all mine and no one else’s. That is unfair to Jon, no doubt it is. But it is done, and I would be lying if I said otherwise.”

And if that brought her closer to Cersei, there was nothing she could do now. She understood now – looking at the red bundle on her breast and the golden cub holding on to her middle – that choice had been made for her the moment she decided to be Joanna’s true mother. She would never let anything divide her children.

“And should you forsake all love, Sansa, might you not take a lover once in a while, like any man would? Pretty and kind men, who would want nothing more than to please you? A merchant that happens to see you when you visit White Harbor? A bard that travels here, just to see if the songs he sings of your beauty are too modest? Perhaps even a daring woman, with a brave heart and skillful hands? It is well known Wylla shares those predispositions,” Arya attempted to jest.

Sansa laughed between her tears.

“I am still very young, aren’t I? I suppose I shouldn’t close my heart so soon.”

“You shan’t. Not while I’m here. You must taste all matters of beautiful people for us both, since I’m bound to one man, no matter how useful he makes himself,” she laughed. “And about Jon, he knows his duty now. He will abide by it. And you should bear no shame for having taken what he offered. Even if he offered it by being reckless in his love making,” she grimaced as she said it, he was her brother still, even as he had been Sansa’s lover. “I only say that giving him news of Winterfell from time to time would strengthen the bounds of his duty and give him hope of redeeming himself for some of his crimes by keeping to it. By protecting his family. For that we still are, no matter how his choices have separated us. Think about it, sister. It might give you some peace.”

Sansa took a deep breath and nodded, taking a glance at the grey eyes that stared at her lovingly.

“I do not want to hurt him, I do not. I have loved him for so long, I have,” she assured her. “How could I not, he gave me Serena, yet…”

“I know you do. Yet, _the North remembers_ , and you are the North Sansa, you remember everything. I know, sister. He is serving his sentence, you do not have to serve it with him. Release you heart. It is high time for you to be free.”

Her Lord Royce had come for the celebrations of the birth of the heir to the North, as had many. Lords from the Riverlands and the West, eager to see not only her new heir, but especially little Joanna and how she faired.

Sansa felt such a peace when she saw him. Welcomed with a smile to prevent herself from running into his arms which would go against every propriety she held so dear. No man had shown her such loyalty as this one, no man ever would. She was afraid he would be disappointed with her.

"Most gracious Queen Sansa." She might have taken it as a jest, from any other man, but Lord Royce said it with such joy, with such pride, it warmed her heart.

“Would you like to hold her, my Lord?” she asked hopefully.

The man reddened but eagerly nodded and opened his arms to receive the babe. He smiled very openly as he looked over her features.

"As beautiful as her Queen-mother. Might the East one day presume to be the first place where Her Grace looks for a groom for her child?"

"My dear Lord Royce, I would only look towards the rivers and the vales, and should you present me with any grandchild I would look towards him first," she gifted him with a true smile, and she meant it.

The Starks had married Royces many times before. After their liege lords, and many times before, they were the strongest force in the Vale. And Lord Royce was a good man, who respected her before any other had. Kept to her. Protected her when she needed him to. She trusted his grandsons had been raised in the same way as his sons. A good match for her northern child. A kind one.

"I have kept a close eye on you. You have surpassed every expectation, Your Grace." He took her hand in his and held it gently, soothingly, while holding her babe carefully with the other. "I am very proud to have served you. And the North should be glad to have such a lady."

She felt very similarly to a child then. Wanting his validation, his approval. "You aren't... You aren't terribly disappointed, are you? You must say it if you are. You were always my truest ally. You mustn’t lie to me now, my dear Lord Royce," she asked him, while looking at her child.

He gave her a small smile and sighed. "I was afraid for you, Your Grace. I won't say that a marriage wouldn't have given you more security, yet your reasoning was understandable, your motives clear. Your preparation admirable. The North is harsh and unbending, but they are known to have bended for you. I doubt they would for anyone else. But you were terribly lucky with the babe's features, a Tully through and through. You mustn’t risk it again, for my health Your Grace," he asked her sincerely.

He knew. He knew about Jon.

Jon, that had a wooden box sent to Winterfell with the dangling bits of the Wildling men that had evaded her punishment, not long after she had Arya send news of the Princess of Winterfell’s birth. Her sister had been right in her assessment. The birth of Serena gave him strength to keep to his duty.

"I believe I have had the privilege of knowing Her Grace better than most," he said as he took notice of her confusion.

During the Long Night he had been her shadow. Spent every waking moment with her. During the preparations for war, for food, for survival, he had stood with her through all of it. Made himself shield for the company of the likes of Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen. Always looked to her first. She was foolish not to imagine he wouldn’t have taken care for her reactions as well. Her frustration with Jon’s choices, her disappointment, her _heartbreak_. The measures she had taken to hide his Targaryen name, his assistance with the plot to do so, for her Lord Royce then had been her closest ally and he knew almost everything she did, her confidant.

Lady Dustin had been a worthy Hand for her, diligent and unfailing. Yet she could not forget Lord Royce, who looked to her and chose her as leader before anyone else dared to. Who supported her and deferred to her, even when he had no obligation to, even when the ones who had, didn’t. How Petyr’s death had bonded them, his hatred and her pain. Her dutifulness had won him over and his loyalty had been everlasting. No one could ever replace Lord Royce in her affections – he had been her first Hand after all.

“I thank you for your counsel, my Lord and I trust…” she could barely say it, it sounded as if she was doubting him. All that he had done for her and _still_ she had to doubt him.

“I stand with you, Your Grace, as does the Vale. As it always stood and always will, ever since you came down the mountain,” he quickly assured her, giving a squeeze to her hand.

She let go of the breath she was holding.

“Lord Arryn is entirely devoted to the cousin he remembers so fondly from youth. And I am ever in your service, Your Grace. I have served many lords in my lifetime, some of them great, but none have honored me in such a way as you have.” He smiled kindly to her.

She could not speak with the emotions that clouded her eyes and he was quick to divert the subject in an effort not to embarrass her.

"How fairs your ward? Quite a little lady, I've seen her about."

Joanna was spinning around the room to the sound of music in her blue dress, her golden curls flying free. Wylla was keeping close to her, while a Westerlander Lord tried to get in the Manderly Lady’s good graces.

Sansa smiled, the change welcomed. "She thrives, my little cub. I'm considering a betrothal for her with some lord from the Riverlands. Perhaps House Bracken, it seems wise with their military force."

Lord Royce hummed. "They have only daughters. But that might change. Blackwood would be a good choice as well. They have roots with the Starks. And they are in their fourth son, same military strength, yet closer to the North, should you ever need to pay a visit to keep their son grounded," he advised.

They tipped back into their old customs so very easily. And she lost herself in their careful planning during a lively feast and her heir, peacefully sleeping in his arms, knowing she was safe in the arms of the her loyal Valeman.

Her Joanna grew older now. She walked beside her, hanging on to her skirts for balance at times. She was a talkative babe, had started very soon, remarkably so, Dacey had assured them, but walking steadily had taken a bit more and now she did it ever so gracefully.

She gave Joanna a cat. Sansa knew what Joffrey had done to Tommen's cats. Everyone did. Cersei might have explained it as a poor attempt to emulated Robert's hunts, yet for her piece of mind, Sansa had given her Lannister child a cat and watched it _very_ carefully. She had told no one of her experiment yet Arya had understood. Her sister understood most of what went through her mind and like her, she too, payed close attention to the cat.

Joanna, her sweet, lovely, golden curled child, had named her white cat – Snow. And Joanna, the little Lady Lannister, daughter of the most fearsome lioness of Kingslanding, granddaughter of the cruelest Lord Tywin, treated that cat like a babe.

Snow, the gentle and ever so patient cat, was fed by hand every day by Joanna. He was bathed with great sacrifice by Joanna, who never lost her temper when he tried to run away from the water, and he slept at the feet of her bed like any good pet would. Snow loved Joanna and she loved him in return. Snow never feared Joanna, he never left her side for long and never did he run away from her with fear and he ever so gracefully wore the ribbon she had decorated him with so the people would know he was not a stray.

Her child was not Joffrey Lannister. Her child was just like _her_. And as she grew and Sansa’s fears dissipated, she started to tell her stories.

She told her of Lelia Lannister, beautiful and clever, who taught her firstborn, his father’s heir, how to be a good king. That had her tongue cut off because of it. Then her ears. Then her lips. Though she spoke of none of those cruelties, she spoke of her struggle. She spoke of the Lannister nephew that avenged her and did the same to her youngest son that had allowed it. Spoke of Genna Lannister, married to a second son of lower house because her father was weak, whose Lannister brother, her grandfather, stood for her when everyone else was silent. Of Myrcella, brave and beautiful Myrcella, stronger than her brother King. Stories of every Lannister woman she remembered. All the lionesses of Lannister that brought pride to their house. And the ones that were shamed because of it. Tells her of her namesake, the proud Lady Joanna, most beloved mother and wife of the most fearsome man in all the kingdoms, who ruled him and by him the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, even if she didn’t quite know it to be truth or legend. How all the lights died when she was gone.

She told her all these stories, so Joanna knew the blood she carried. The strength she had inside her. Her connections that would one day tie her to the Rock, even if her heart would always be tied to her. So that one day, when she would to leave to her golden keep, she would find familiar faces there, calling to her in the halls, edging her on.

She did it so Joanna wouldn’t be so alone when the horrible parts of her story came to her as well. About Tywin and how he murdered her mother’s family, about Joffrey, who gave her some of her scars. About Tyrion, Jaime and Cersei Lannister and their generation of doom.

Sansa had received many Westerlander Maesters ever since she had sent word to the West that she would start Joanna’s education. Many had come and many had left with stories of the Ice Queen of the North that broke no smiles for flattery.

Maester Creylen was a white bearded man. Not fat like Pycelle had been, but not overly lean. He had served at the Rock under Tywin Lannister. He had an honest face, Sansa had no doubt Tywin did not permit anyone to lie to him.

"Thank you for coming all this way Maester."

He bowed his head as she pointed him to a chair. "It is my honor, Your Grace." She offered him a cup of wine to quench his thirst, but he refused. "I would keep my wits with me if you would permit me Your Grace, I have been told I would have need of them." Sansa smiled at the jape.

Most men weren't so forward with her. Keeping to themselves and speaking kindly and complementing her, as if speaking to a maiden. Creylen had kept his seat at Casterly Rock, continuing to serve under Ser Addam. She expected him to be loyal to him because of it.

"It is my understanding you served Tywin Lannister, as his counselor as well, before Ser Addam."

He nodded. "I did, Your Grace."

"What did you think of him?" she asked purposely.

The maester took a deep breath. "He was a very efficient man."

"Was he now?"

Most of them would have spoken less kindly of him, considering what he had done to her family. This man chose to be honest instead. It spoke to her curiosity.

"He was cruel. No doubt. A monster some could say and still do. But there was no better strategist than Tywin Lannister, by treachery or trickery he beat them all.” He shrugged absentmindedly. “Still every man can be defeated and his lack of heart, his ego, was his downfall though. Badly kept children turn against their sires when pushed, no matter how much they fear them. And one could say that ravaging the Riverlands for one’s least favorite son, simply to protect the Lannister name was not the soundest decision. He feared far too much turning into his father, I’m afraid. I suppose many men do." He shrugged but didn’t shrink beneath her gaze.

Sansa’s face betrayed not one of her thoughts. “You knew Tyrion Lannister?”

“A bit. By the time I was assigned to Casterly Rock they were all nearly grown, I had little hand in their making, I’m afraid.”

“Some would say Tyrion was a good strategist as well. The true heir to Tywin Lannister, would you tend to agree?” The ones that did were dead, she wouldn’t bother too much with them, yet she would like to know his opinion.

He scoffed but regained his composer quickly. “Permit me to share a bit of my knowledge with Your Grace. The Lannister name is a great one, a powerful one, and it his prone to feed delusions of grandeur. Tyrion Lannister betrothed his niece, a princess of the Seven Realms to a third son. When a wardship and a seat on the council would have done. Simply the head of the Mountain would have done, in truth. I do not see the brilliance in that. He thought he could control a Targaryen, after all the history that proved he would fail, he believed himself capable of the impossible. Men who proud themselves on being clever rarely are.”

Sansa smiled. “You don’t seem to like Lannisters at all, Maester. For someone who was loyal to the family for such a while.”

“I am a Maester, Your Grace, I serve to the best of my ability those I have been appointed to. I was loyal to the Lannisters, else I would be dead, it’s true, like my predecessor was before me. Yet I take my vows with the weight they are owed, and I would have been loyal regardless of threats because of it. I am a man from the West. I wish only to see it thrive.”

Sansa nodded slowly. “And now you serve our capable Ser Marbrand.”

He shook his head. “I serve Lady Joanna, as the last Lannister, and I would serve you as the Lannister Lady you might have claimed to be and for the love it is told you bare the child.”

“And if I love her not?” she wondered, her eyes narrowing.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why so? She, a _bastard_ born of incest, a child of my captors. I should hate no one more than the blood of their blood,” she asserted strongly.

None spoke of Joanna as a bastard. Much less of incest, when such a thing could be ignored. Not when the most noble Queen in the North took her as ward. Not when she was the last Lannister alive. Yet, it was a good thing to be addressed, when one spoke of loyalty.

“And yet you took great risks to keep this child. Were a Lady-in-waiting to her mother through the time of her captivity. It is well known she would see no one but you.”

“Mayhap it was me than allowed her to see no one else, my own little punishment that she would have to content with a Queen for a Lady’s maid,” she laughed insincerely and leaned forward. “I heard they call me many things in the West. The witch who tricked the Great Lioness into giving her her child, the winged wolf that killed King Joffrey with a spell, I particularly like that one. I wonder why among so many tales you would choose that particular version of me. And I will remind you Maester that flattery is a game best played among men.”

He crossed his hands on his lap. “She calls you _mother_. I heard it in the halls as I was taken here. This gentle voice that sounded so much like what the late Queen could sound like when she wished it so. I don’t know many wardens that would allow their wards to call them by such a title. And not even _Lady Mother_? Well, not even trueborn children are permitted that by many, and since you have one, I would wager they are held to the same standards in your care.”

Sansa clenched her jaw and leaned back on her chair. This man was an observant. Petyr had been observant too.

“What are your thoughts on Cersei Lannister?” He had called her Queen. Not many still did.

“Her father’s true heir. The same ambition, the same ego, the same rage. It was only the freedom of a man that tempered his, she was given no such leeway.”

“And me? Do I remind you of her?” she was eager to know, she always was, to know if people saw green eyes instead of blue.

“In a way. Yet she would never have given you her child if she found you the same, I think. Had it been another way round she wouldn’t have kept your child. A Lion loves nothing more than what is his.”

Was Sansa not hers? Hadn’t Cersei claimed her again and again, _her_ sister, _her_ mirror, _her_ … nevermind.

Sansa gave him a clipped smile. She might have preferred a different kind of answer.

“Do you believe me capable of her cruelty?”

“And far beyond. Her anger was quick, yours it seems, builds on. It’s no wonder you are the most feared woman of these Seven Realms.” Arianne would have contested.

“Then tell me why, Maester Creylen, would you wish to be near such a dangerous liege? For if I accept you, you will be mine and Joanna’s to command, your loyalty to the seat you have been assigned to void. I am no less demanding of loyalty than Tywin Lannister, much less around my children.”

“You should know Your Grace, that though I am a learned man from the various subjects the Citadel has to offer, I was chosen particularly by Lord Tywin for being a scholar, arithmetic, war and statecraft and above all else _history_.” His eyes almost shined as he said it.

Sansa hummed amused. “He had you write his memoirs, did he?”

“Indeed, your Grace and I have, as I advised him as well in all matters of statecraft. Yet, if it would not inconvenience you, I would write yours.”

Sansa raised a brow. “ _Mine_?”

“I won’t last to the end of your life, but I would write what I am able about the War. You have been on the side of the making of history, the first Queen of the North, their liberator, I would like my hand to be the one to write it, if you would allow it so.” He bowed lowly in a show of submission Sansa was not known for enjoying.

He was ambitious too like Petyr, a different kind of ambition though. That was built around his Maester’s chains.

“You were invited here under the assumption you would be her tutor. I have need of someone who can teach Joanna about the West in the ways I cannot. How the sun sets on the great stone hill, how it makes living on an edge of a cliff worth it, if only to see the gleaming sun and hear the comings and goings of the waves. I need someone who can tell her stories of how it resembles a lion reposing at sunset, and stories of the lords that have glorified this great lion that is the Rock. I need someone who can describe every room of Casterly Rock by memory and wonder alone. I need someone who loves Lannisters and wants to see them thrive, and I need someone who loves the West and knows how to make it so, with much more than just gold.”

The Manderlys could teach her how to make Lannisport a great trading port again, with no doubt, for they had been great once and could be great again, with much more ease than White Arbor had achieved by hard work and a marriage alliance with Braavos. She could teach Joanna about glass gardens and how to provide food for the West, as she had been doing for years supporting Ser Marbrand, yet always keeping tricks to herself for Joanna to use when she took her rightful place. But there were things that Sansa could not do.

“For when I think of the Rock, Maester, I think of bloody rooms hidden by scorching sunlight. I think of Cerelle Lannister, a poor babe, who no doubt must have shared my daughters features, the Lady of Lannister, being poisoned by her own uncle. I think of Lady Rohanne, his wife, who disappeared under _mysterious_ circumstances. Of Tarbeck women with their tongues cut off. Of the walk of shame Lord Tytos’ mistress had to endure, do we even know her name? It matters not, does it. But how can we forget that what the Lannister Lords did to that woman came back to haunt their own daughter?” Sansa took a deep breath and smoothed down her skirts. “These things haunt me, you see Maester. For my daughter is a Lannister, no matter how much she enjoys the snow, and the cold that comforts me, she will have to go to those bloody rooms and speak kindly of shameful men. And I cannot teach her that. I need someone who can. I have no need of a writer for my deeds. I need a tutor, who can teach Lannister pride, for I cannot, no matter how much I have tried.”

The Maester nodded in thought and rose for his chair. Walked closer to the bookstands ran his fingers through old books.

“You have named your daughter Serena, have you not? No doubt because you knew her story. Of Stark men who robbed Stark women of their rights. As you too have been robbed, once not long ago. House Stark isn’t without their sins, no house is, _you_ , no doubt know that, more than most. Do you speak kindly, of shameful Stark men, Your Grace?” he asked, boldly.

“I do not.”

“You are the first reigning Lady of Winterfell, you are the first Queen of Winter. I am a humble Maester. I am a westerlander, I can teach her of Lannister pride. I can teach the little lady how to love the rugged hills, rolling plains, the caves and caverns and all their uses. I can teach of all the Lannister Lords and Ladies that came before her, how they have conquered and how they have failed. Yet, only you can teach her how to be the first liege Lady of her realm. And if you would let me write it, you would be teaching many more than just your daughters. Let your story be forgotten and your name will be erased by men who want it not to be repeated. I do not wish to deceive you, it would fulfill my every ambition to have my name be the one below yours and I do not wish it out of the goodness of my heart, but because I would be the man who had the vision to write down the story of the most important woman of The War of the Five Kings. My words would be read for ages. I am an ambitious man. I wish my words to be read, that is my only desire in this life. Should you allow this, I would be the most loyal of Maesters. And in both of our interests I would be a good tutor for the Lady Lannister, so that my name can also be remembered for having had a hand in her success. That is all that I wish, would you permit me this honor, my Queen?” he asked as passionately as she presumed an historian could.

Sansa laughed then. A heartfelt laugh from a woman who was not used to being surprised.

Cersei had warned her of what could happen to her name. Of what men would tell of her years from now. _Witch_. _Whore_. Why not take care of the issue while she still lived.

“Very well, Maester. Let us see your skills put to use.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. I really do know it has been a long time. I am really sorry. But it’s exam season and it’s nowhere near the end, so the next chapter might also take a while but not nearly as much as this one, I promise! I wrote a much longer chapter to try and make up for it. 
> 
> There wasn’t a lot to choose from the Stark family tree, but I always loved the name Serena and it was right there next to Sansa and I couldn’t help myself. I also really love Jocelyn, but 2 Jo’s was too much I think. There were other names, but they were either too common all across Westeros or too Targaryen. So that was my train of thought. 
> 
> There’s going to be a time jump next chapter and it will be all about Cersei, Joanna and Casterly Rock. Very lion themed. Very motherhood and politics focused. Sansa in her full Queen outfit, if that makes sense. The next Cersei-Sansa will be very confrontational, very emotional for both of them.
> 
> I hope you like this chapter, I always love to read your feedback, it really helps me write and gives me a lot of encouragement. As always, thank you so much for reading.


	8. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are childless, and I am motherless. It’s only natural that we cling to each other.

Past

“There was this little man,” Cersei said, all of a sudden, “his name was Qyburn.”

As the days to the birth were closing in, Cersei became more talkative. No less bitter, but she irked to speak, ranted in and out about her life and stories. Once, Sansa was sure she would ask her for paper and ink to write her memories down – _the tales of the true lion_. She would give it a fechting name and manage to insult ever distant relation that ever had the distinction of having a drop of Lannister blood. She did no such thing and Sansa liked to consider she was passing down whatever little wisdom she had yet to give. Or perhaps she was mocking her, letting her know of mistakes she would make, errors in judgement she could not escape from.

“He was a former maester, I always detested them. Their grabby fat fingers, their eagerness to touch. The smell of Pycelle alone made me want gut him like a fish, but alas. Qyburn had no such predilections for vulnerable things under his grasp. No – he was a man of science. Devoted to his craft.” She shrugged. “I won’t say he had any qualms about harming anyone in the process, but we all have our faults. He was able of wonders, horrors too.”

Sansa grimaced but endured, Cersei always had a point to be made.

“I knew not you were interested in the healing arts.”

Cersei frowned, confused. “Goodness, no. No interest at all. Qyburn was the most loyal man I have ever met. I did not take it lightly either, gave him gold, position, freedom to do his purpose. And he was loyal to me, more than anyone, my son, his King, my father, the Lannister name, he was loyal to me – Cersei Lannister. Dare I say, he was… -” she seemed lost for a bit, entrapped in emotions unfamiliar to her “- he was kind. After the…” She shook her head and didn’t say it, she had no need to, Sansa understood. “Well, he was ever so competent, you see. Created the perfect knight of Gregor Clegane, a mute beast that followed my every order, until it killed him. And to the very end, he was loyal. I was unaccustomed to it. You, no doubt, know the feeling.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sansa told her, well-meaning, even if she was sure Cersei did not recognize it in the same way.

Cersei raised a brow and eventually rolled her eyes at her.

“He discovered what poison was used with Myrcella quite easily. I gave it to Ellaria Sand’s perfect daughter; had her witness her beautiful face contort in agony and rot in front of her own eyes. It did not ease my pain, but by the gods, her screams relieved it.” She smiled, a saccharine smile she was ever so found of, so common on her face from her time in Kingslanding. “He recreated _Joff_ ’s poison too.”

Sansa raised a brow, she could play with Cersei today, if she so desired it. This storm had been long brewing and as her child’s time came to a due, Cersei was ever more prepared to start delivering her blows. “ _Poison is a woman’s weapon_ , who would have thought you would resort to it.”

Cersei clenched her jaw but hid it with a smile.

“ _I had it ready for you._ ” She almost whispered as she said it, as if a secret she had kept close to her heart for an eternity, something she was eager to bring out. “For years I kept it. Always waiting for the moment, you would come back to me. I had plans for Tyrion too, far more gruesome and I looked for him, without relent. Yet, I never liked my brother, I never trusted him. I never cared for him. _But you_? I looked for you, my little dove, who had flown from my nest. But you were a smart dove, weren’t you? I even summoned you for the Dragon Pit meeting, but you would not come. Sent the Tarth Maid just to taunt me, didn’t you? Let your idiot lover disgrace himself for the world to see how witless he was in front of us all. The dragon girl found it ever so endearing, you would have retched just to see it, I’m sure. Such a disappointment he was. All he had to do was say he would remain impartial, I wouldn’t have sent my army, but he did not know that, _clearly_. An honourable fool. Just like your father. Just like you could have been, had dear old Ned bothered to raise you.”

Sansa raised a brow, she was unimpressed. Her father did not bother himself with her, that was well known. He was dead, she had grieved him into womanhood, not anymore. Jon was a fool, she had never considered him otherwise, even as she loved him. She had expected more than a bruise from the Lion Queen.

“You have lost your touch, my Queen, perhaps when you lost your crown,” Sansa wagered, she could through blows too, just as bloody.

“You’ve grown rather a thick skin, I suppose, how very lovely.” She nodded slowly, with somewhat appreciation. “As I was saying, similarly to Ellaria Sand I would have found someone you loved; would have made you watch as I took them from you -” she shrugged “- but _who_ would it be... Who did you care enough for to feel as I felt as my first born was taken from me? Again, and again I thought of everyone you could have cared for and one by one they disappeared. Dropped like flies, they did. Well… _like Starks_.” She smiled, very proud of her little jape. “There was no one I could take from you that you hadn’t already lost. And by the time Jon Snow came to me, in those dark clothes you had surely made him –“ she chuckled “- by that time I knew it hadn’t been you, that you had not betrayed me so, you that I had fed and clothed. Do not mistake me, you were a sharp little thing not to come. I would have kept you, of course, my own little wolf. I wouldn’t have poisoned you, but I would have kept you. There was no one left _but_ you.”

Sansa grew tired of hearing her speak, of the knot on her throat that reminded her of who she had been in Kingslanding. Cersei’s little pet. Joffrey’s plaything. Lannister’s hostage. Traitor’s daughter. Toothless wolf. She remembered her wedding to the imp, the thoughts that had frozen her then, _they have made me a Lannister_.

“Such dangerous things to say to your captor, Cersei. Such foolish things to say to the only person who bothers themselves with you. Would you have me leave? There is no one else but me, you acknowledge it yourself. You can be alone with your thoughts and your ever-growing child, in these chambers. Nothing to do, no one worthy of you to speak with, tell me what your heart desires _Your Grace_ , so I might comply with your wishes,” she mocked her.

Cersei smiled; a forced smile full of teeth, as she rose and came closer to her. “And where would you run to, my dove? To where could either of us run to and escape each other? Is this not your cell too? The cell of the woman who is everything you could have become, _younger and more beautiful_ that you are. Isn’t it a punishment for you to watch me die, day in, day out. Does this bring you the joy you thought it would, all those times you imagined me dead? I could have been your mother in another life. I almost was once, when a Baratheon crown was planned to grace your head. Are you not me in wolf’s clothing? Tell me, Sansa, could you leave me here, go back to Winterfell, that cold castle of ghosts the world has built for you? Imagine me dying in a room you were not in? Wouldn’t I follow you if you didn’t see me die?”

Sansa got up and stood away from her, the feeling that she was running made her stop in her tracks and turn back to her. She could hurt her too. In so much crueller ways, she could. Things she had kept inside her for years, secrets and japes told in her presence. She could tell them all.

“I thought of killing you as well. Plenty, and often. I was sure, as the Tully blood that ran through my veins that when you died, I would be there to see it. The death of my wolf bide it so, did it not? Your order, my father’s hand. I saw him die, years later nothing seemed so fated to me as that I would see you the same way. I saw Petyr die in front of my eyes as well, begging my mercy. Both my late husbands too. By ravenous beasts and sharp blades, they all died with my eyes on theirs. Do not presume to think you are anything more than my first tormenter. You simply had the privilege of having been the first, do not delude yourself in claiming any special place in my heart. You did not make me, Cersei Lannister. I made myself in spite of you, and many others.” She would not make herself smaller for this woman. “I am but a benevolent woman, offering company to a dying Queen, who was once my mistress. Call it pity if you must give it a name for what keeps me in this room.”

She lost her smile, but none of her sharpness.

“ _Pity_ , is that so?” she hummed. “Did you pity any of the men you speak of?”

Sansa shrugged. “None of them were with child.”

Cersei laughed then. Loud and clear and thunderous.

There was silence for some time, but there was a rage inside Sansa she could no longer bear.

“And you should know that I did not kill your son, but he is dead because of me,” she assured her, controlled herself not to bring her hands to her mouth in regret for having said it and stood her ground.

It took Cersei aback for a moment. “What do you mean, Sansa?” she asked her so very slowly, so very attentively.

“Margaery was kind to me in a way that you were unable. And when she and Olenna asked what kind of man he was, I spoke of your little monster. I told them the truth and Olenna loved her granddaughter, much the same way you loved your son. I want you to be certain, with your whole being, that if you had been kinder, if you had controlled him better, if you had showed me the motherly love, you so easily claim now – you would have found no greater loyalty than mine. I would have been your greatest supporter, I would have sung your praises and kept to you and your beast of a son. I would have even loved you, much better than he ever could. I would have _easily_ called you mother, since I knew from the moment I was sold to the crown that you would be the only one I would know from then forth. _You_ chose differently. And you sealed both our fates.”

She was quiet for so long that Sansa did not know if she should leave. Cersei finally moved and sat on a chair, the weight of the child bothering her as she grimaced and finally looked at her.

“I endured humiliation as well. I was beaten and raped like any other Queen, like any other wife. Should I have protected you from these things when I couldn’t even protect myself?” she asked her earnestly, much more serene than she would have expected after what she had told her.

“I would have _,_ ” she said resounded.

“You overestimate my power then. When I showed myself with bruises from Robert’s hands. Do you remember your father, his most dear friend, saying anything at all? The honourable Lord Stark dared not infringe on a husband’s rights upon his wife. Jon Arryn much the same. And my own father, the Great Lord Lannister, the most feared, do you think he did anything as well? Do you think yours would have, had he been in Tywin Lannister’s place? Had you been the one with bruises and sunken eyes? He killed your own wolf, yet you think he would have placed himself before your husband’s blows.” She snorted. “ _Do not_ pretend an innocence you no longer possess. And my son… who killed your father against my wishes. Who killed all of Robert’s bastards, all those babes. What power did you think I had over him? What power did you have upon your bastard brother, when he was made King? I taught you how I survived, it was more than it was _ever_ taught to me,” she assured her, her voice even and her eyes sharp. “More than your mother _ever_ taught you.”

She took a hand to her child, grasping it carefully as if the bump would disappear if she was not careful. “Myrcella was my own daughter, my darling girl, and what could I do for her? Was she not taken away from me to be married to a _third_ son, by my imp of a brother, despised by all, yet _still a man_ and therefore more powerful than a Queen. I could not stop them from ripping her away from my arms or from this world. Myrcella was _my_ daughter, you were my replacement Sansa. Do not be naïve, it is ill-suited of you and the scars you bear. You would have done much the same. You did worse, in fact,” she pointed out.

Sansa eyed her carefully. “What do you speak of?”

“Was Daenerys not your replacement Sansa? Did she not arrive to Westeros to take what was yours? The realm that you had built for yourself. Those frozen rocks you call Winterfell. The title you had conquered, that you had regained from your captors. You were the most powerful woman in Westeros, were you not? There was me, but I was far away and no doubt you had your own plans for you beloved Queen, as I did for my beloved ward. Olenna was focused on revenge and cared not for what happened in the North. Dorne was fighting amongst themselves. Yara Greyjoy was ever barely a concern to anyone. And then this little girl comes out of nowhere, armed with titles giving to her by herself, 3 dragons at her back and deserving _none_ of it. Demanding your realm, your brother, your obedience, your bended back in submission. What did you do, Sansa? What did you do?” she demanded to know.

“ _We are not the same_ ,” she assured her, with lack of better words.

Cersei hummed. “Very well. We are not the same. It’s true. But tell me, I beseech you, since it seems I do not know you as well as I think. Since I am not your maker, and you are not my spawn. Are you more like your father, did you bend for the assistance she provided with the Battle against the Others, did you bend to keep your brother’s oath? Perhaps you were more like your mother? _Family_ , duty, honour. Daenerys lost a dragon to save the fool, did you bend to her out of thankfulness, of gratitude? Or were you more like little rebellious Arya, whose recklessness got your wolf killed? Perhaps you threatened the woman right as she arrived. Maybe you were like Jon, foolish, dim-witted, well-intentioned, dear Jon and bended the knee as soon as she arrived. Baelish? You spent a lot of time with that particular tormenter, with his whispers and his whores, his games and his obsessions. Did you offer her your brother to bed, so she wouldn’t turn against you? Which of these routes did you take? Surely you did nothing I would do. I mean nothing to you – _pity_ , wasn’t it?” she laughed a hollow laugh.

“I killed her closest advisor in front of her eyes. Openly challenged her will for the throne. Used my people as barrier against her fire, underestimated her cruelty, her desire for worship, _of course_ , Cersei. I am only your mirror,” Sansa told her, her voice dripping with irony, as she rolled her eyes. “I was better than you. Is that supposed to make me your equal, that I have surpassed you?”

“Use your tricks of words with those who are eager to fall for them and answer me truthfully. Could you not have prevented what happened in Kingslanding? _I wonder_ – you knew who she was, you knew of the havoc she could create, better than me, who underestimated her, I concede. I have no doubt you knew – _yet_ , you did not act. Why is that? Is it your father’s honour that still haunts you, of how he treated Jaime after he drove that sword through the madman’s back? Were you afraid they would not see what you had prevented and come for you? Were you afraid you were wrong, that it was the Baelish in you that made you see threats in even dim-witted fools? Or perhaps it was simply more useful to let her do her way in Kingslanding, let me take the first blunt of her forces, let her show Westeros the monster you _knew_ she was. It would make it ever so simple to destroy her once she was weakened. That sounds remarkably _just like me_.” She smiled when Sansa didn’t answer – could not answer.

“You told your brother’s secret, even if you have managed to bury it back into the ground, like the skilful little player that you are. You knew what it would do to her. How the righteousness that had carried her all her life would crumble. You saved him, there is no doubt, but you knew that it just as might could have killed him. But you would not be replaced again. Not by your inferior. Not by a dim-witted girl that had nothing more to her than her dragons and her looks. Not when you had suffered and learned as you have for your freedom. For you piece of land and power. Tell me, my _dear_ dove, did you build a Scorpion too?”

Sansa raised a brow. “Of course, I did. Metal, _unlike you_. So they wouldn’t be destroyed as easily.”

She smirked. “Who knows you better than me? For I surely know no one knows me better than you,” she said it almost softly. “You did not come, for you knew that I would keep you, whatever my reasons. I have no doubt you knew my armies would never go North. My brothers are dead, my children are dead. And yet you remain to me. You could be North. Why aren’t you, pity does not fuel you. Pity does not fuel survivors. And if there is anything that you can claim to be, is that.”

Lies would not end this conversation. Lies would not win this spar. She chose the truest thing it came to mind. Something that would hurt both of them.

“You are childless, and I am motherless. It’s only natural that we cling to each other.”

Cersei lost her smirk and tilted her head to the side, ever so thoughtfully. “Is it? There are so many motherless women here, and I have met so many over the years, destroyed them without second thought, and yet I have claimed only you. Why is that? Myrcella was good, and beautiful and innocent, she had not a drop of my viciousness. Myrcella would have hidden her face in shame at the things I have done. You, however, are just as beautiful and were just as innocent. And you have listened to all my lessons. Even the ones you chose not to follow. Like I did with my father. And you have spilled blood. Wisely. Cunningly. And though I have no doubt that knowledge pains you at night, for you are still a Stark, no matter how it has been beaten from you, you have spilled that blood without regret. For you knew it to be the _only_ choice.”

She remembered all those years in Kingslanding. She remembered Myrcella so well. Gentle Myrcella and beautiful, how Cersei eyes shone every time she walked by her. How _jealous_ Sansa had been of her. Fatherless Sansa. Motherless Sansa. Lonely Sansa.

“Why are you saying these things now? I cannot save you from this fate, that you would bear any hope of it, is ridiculous for you know I cannot, even if I wanted to. Is that what you want me to admit, that I want to? That I care for you? I do, I curse the gods for it, but I do. Is it to torment me? Because I wanted you as a mother once? Is it? Because I had a hand in your son’s death? Tell me why. Aren’t you exhausted of playing games, Cersei? Aren’t you tired?” She didn’t take her eyes from her as she said it and the tears kept on failing, hers or Cersei’s she couldn’t tell, her eyes were so foggy. “I am exhausted, I feel as if I have lived ten lives. The game is excruciating. It seems it will never know an end. I am the only thing you have left here, in these strange halls, I am the only one. Shouldn’t you try to keep me now? I will never forget you, is that what you want to hear? I won’t. I could never. I could have become you so many times, I could have become you and so many times I did. And so many times I did not.”

She turned around and went to sit on one of the chairs closer to the window. Took her hands to her face and cleaned her tears away if only for a minute. She had been in a meeting with the Valemen not long before and their women used their hair in stern up duos, so she had done the same to show them respect, now the pins hurt her scalp and she could no longer bear them. Took them one by one slowly, letting her hair fall in ringlets around her face as she looked at the sun over the river.

“It isn’t pity that keeps you then, its _shame_. There is no need to feel it, I’ve known more of it than you, than you will _ever_ know of it. If you are _ashamed_ of our resemblance. If that is what keeps you, you can leave me at once. I have absolutely no need of you then,” she could hear the tears in her voice too, every time she whispered the blasted word.

Sansa looked back at her. Her blood tinted hair undone, and her face stricken with tears. Men would have found her grief beautiful, many had. All dead now, they were. Her voice sounded so much like Bran while she said it that if she had any strength inside her she would have been scared.

“I _could_ have killed her. I could have broken guest right, made the Old Gods curse me for it, what worse could they do to me that hadn’t already been done by lesser men. I could have poisoned her. They would have guessed my hand, of course, but who could truly fault me. Enemies were something she didn’t lack. But what would I do about the dragons? Bran could control one, surely, but two?” She shook her head. “No. And Jon would have never went along with a plan that wasn’t his. And at that time I already didn’t trust him. I couldn’t. I thought, _let her go to Kingslanding, let her face the last true player_. I know a monster when I see one, but never did I think she could conquer _you_. I sent no food. Not a grain. She didn’t even notice and if she did she was too far gone to come back and burn me. And whatever few northern men went, were Jon’s and not mine. I told Tyrion who Jon was and let the pawns play themselves. It was a true master move, letting the smallfolk into the keep, if she wasn’t a Targaryen it would have been brilliant. If the dragons weren’t her true children and if she cared about anything else but worship. When I heard that you had killed one of the dragons I knew, in my bones that nothing would stop her from killing you. I was so _mad_. That this little girl, that had been gifted unimaginable powers that she had used for nothing else but destruction, from gods that had deserted me, thought that she was owed everything, just because of her blood and name. That she was owed _your_ death because you had killed her monster…” She took a deep breath. “I made another move, I told Jaime that she would kill you and he went to you. And you survived. Tell me, was that me or you?” Sansa shrugged, emotionless. “Looking back, I can’t tell.”

Cersei made not a sound and Sansa turned back towards the setting sun.

“I could have saved Kingslanding. I could have killed her on my own stone walls. I could have shamed generations of Starks and saved thousands of people, if only I wasn’t so terrified of being _your_ daughter. So you see, Kingslanding isn’t ash because I was just like you. You aren’t jailed in these chambers because I was just like you. You and I are here, serving our punishment, not because I was ashamed of you. Thousands died because I chose what little honour I had left, over what needed to be done. I chose honour above my duty. I chose being a Stark over being a true ruler. I was taught to serve, not to lead, so I served. My ancestors, my house. Jon. I was terrified they would turn against me. I had _no one left_ , you said it yourself. And I will never forgive myself for it. I am Sansa Tully Stark, I know a monster when I see one. And I did not act because I was afraid. Because I did not want to be a Lannister. And how the Seven Kingdoms bled because of it. My ancestors would be proud. Generations of Starks would be proud that I made the North free without breaking any oaths, drawing any northern blood. And I will always be disappointed because I should have killed a woman in cold blood for what I _knew_ she could do. I should have killed the dragons as soon as they had no more use to me. I should have taken Jon’s crown while it was still on his head. I should have been more like you. But I was not. And now I am locked in this room with you and a blameless child… and what I could not do…” she could no longer speak with the tears that filled her throat.

She felt a hand on her shoulder which only made her cry harder and another running her fingers softly through her hair.

“This blameless babe will never know me. But _you do_. You will remember me. That's the only thing I will leave, truly. My face in this child and your memories. I would have clawed those high cheeks of yours in another life, would have ripped this perfect hair from you pretty little head for what hand in my children’s demise, the same way you would have slid a knife across my throat for the hand I played in your family’s. In this one, you will be what I have left in this world.” She made her way so she could face her, took her cheeks in her hands, like only a mother would, like only a mother could. Her eyes shining with madness, despair or ambition she could not tell. “My legacy. Who would have thought. This is my victory sweetling, you must allow me this one sweetness. Over your father. Over Westeros. Over even mine own house, mine own family. My own father is nothing more than ash now, he will die with me. Tyrion has left no impression upon the world worth speaking of. Jaime will be remembered, surely, there is fairness to that. Kingslayer, they will call him. They will call me _Queen Mother_. My own dead children are already forgotten. My name _will_ be remembered next to yours. Thank you, Sansa Stark. The gods have chosen you for me. They have bound us, it’s true. My child. My replacement. You are the winner of the game of thrones. I am the last true player you will kill. Cry not, child. Just say my name often and loudly once I'm gone. I'm all you have left too. Who could care so honestly for the woman you have become if not me? Who could be this proud? Your shrewdness, your cunning? Your ice. _Only a Lannister_ , sweetling, can truly love another Lannister,” she told her so softly, such a vicious lullaby, meant only to lace them even more closely together, as she took one of Sansa’s hands and placed them above her pregnant belly.

Sansa had no words to speak. She knew only to keep her eyes opened wide on her green ones and keep herself from shaking from the golden beast in front of her.

“You sent Jaime to me. You did it with purpose. Everything you do has purpose, _I know_. The Tarth maiden knew that as well, is that why she has changed service to your brother, she could not forgive you? It doesn’t matter now. Who could you confide in with your care for me? Who would not call you mad? _Only me_ , for I care for you too, against the hand you had in my children's demise. In my own. We are bound, Sansa, my little wolf, by the gods, old and new, we are. You're my demise,” she told her with the sharpest, most joyous smile.

She took a deep breath and gave her a tight smile. “You can leave now, sweetling. This spar has been bloody, I know. We must lick our wounds now. Just remember your promises. You will be here when I die, you have sworn,” she reminded her, as she took her motherly hands and cleaned the tears from Sansa’s swollen face before letting her leave.

_Present_

"Tell me about her. Tell me about Cersei, " she asked her from the threshold of her chamber door.

Sansa’s breath caught in her throat but she patted the mattress so she would come to her. The girl laid her head in her lap. Sansa smiled softly.

Joanna was ten and four now. It would only be two years before she would have to go to Casterly Rock. Only two more years with the light of her heart. She had never asked about Cersei. Yes, she knew, very clearly. No one in her family looked like her and she was called Lady in the same breath as her sister was called Princess. She had cried so much when Sansa had explained she had not given birth to her, she had been so young then and refused to talk about it for the longest of times. She was the Lady Lannister and did not resent it or dismissed her duties as such, and yet refused to consider anyone but Sansa as her mother. Cersei would have been heartbroken. Cersei would not have shown it.

"She was the most beautiful woman in the Seven Realms. The _Light of the West_ they called her, before she was the _Lioness of Kingslanding_." Her new title, ever since Daenerys became the _Mad Queen_ to follow her father's legacy, who became simply known as her sire. “They told that if only Rhaegar had married her he would have never left his wife for Lyanna Stark. But that is not true. Men's hearts are fickle regardless of their wives’ beauty. Still, they are not children and their impulses can be controlled no matter how much reason they try to attach to them."

"They say _you_ are the most beautiful woman in the world now. They sing of men who would kill for you, who would die for you." _Because of her_.

"It shan't take long for them to call you the same and forget all about me, my cub. You have her face. You smile like her sometimes. When you want to get your way," Sansa laughed as Joanna scrunched up her nose.

"She burned down a Sept." Joanna said seriously, putting an end to her laugh.

Sansa ran her hand down her golden hair soothingly, as she undid the braid she had seen Serena make as she had crossed their chambers door before retiring.

"She did. They humiliated and shamed her in brutal ways, took her as prisoner and paraded her naked on the street as if a slave to be sold. They wanted to do worse to her. She shouldn't have, but yes, she did burn down a sept. And everyone in it. But that has nothing to do with you. You don't bare that on your shoulders. Her actions aren't a reflection of who you are," she assured her in a confident tone.

"Did she deserve what they did to her?" she asked in a trembling voice.

Sansa took a deep breath but answered all the same, she was old enough to understand. "What right did they have to do such a thing? To her, a Queen, to anyone, with which right does a man punish a woman for sins which they wouldn’t judge a man for? No. There are punishments that fit no crime. She didn't deserve what they did to her. Hers was a very cruel punishment. Meant to break her. To humiliate her. It made her harder in return, it did not break her. You come from very strong blood Jo, blood that has conquered and thrived. It wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad. No house is. Don’t you remember Lelia?" she tried to cheer her with her favourite Lannister story. 

Joanna wanted none of it. "Did they do it because of her and her brother?"

Sansa sighed. That was question she wasn’t sure how to answer. This had been a subject she and Cersei had refrained from discussing. Things they had kept to themselves and only shared by heavy looks and words said with a heavier tone. The horrors they had lived hadn’t been described. They both carried fear that the words would give them strength.

"I don’t know all of it Jo. I was in the Vale at that time, but I do know men of the faith. They did it because she was Queen Regent and she used the power she had, of that I am sure. They wanted her humble and penitent, and obedient to a man’s hand, like they want all women. The Mother, the Maiden and the Crone should be all obedient to the Father."

"Would they do the same to you were they alive?"

They wanted to do the same to Margaery. And Sansa was much more than Margaery had ever achieved to be. A Queen in her own right, with fatherless children and a voice like thunder. Holy man wanted bended women; she had not even bowed to dragons. She wouldn’t have bowed for them.

"They would have tried, yes. I am a ruling Queen, I have more power than they deem any women fit to have. We have so much of our own, to make life. A crown on top of that, well... Their fear owns them, and they try to cut us down. Men will always try to cut you down. Some women too, my darling."

Cersei was one of such kind, it had been her hand that guided Margaery down her cell, she knew, though she did not speak it.

Joanna’s mind was quick, and she had question upon question that must have been building inside her for years. Sansa was patient as she took the brush from her nightstand and brushed her golden hair. Tried not to consider the amount of times she would still be able to do this, before her girl had to leave her.

"Was she mad? People whisper that she was mad, but the one that came after her was madder still, so people forget about Cersei."

Sansa almost laughed. "That would have made her angry. That people would dare forget about her. She was the second queen on the Iron Throne and the last to have sat on it. She should be remembered. And no, she wasn't mad. She was afraid. That they would hurt again. And people are very reckless when they are afraid Joanna. Cersei could be brutal in a fight. She spared no blows, when she found herself against a wall. And she did find herself against a wall before she burned the Great Sept."

She seemed to consider it for a while.

"You can call her mother, Joanna. I wouldn't mind," Sansa promised her in truth.

"But you're my mother," she said offended, turning a head around to face her.

Sansa smiled. "Of course, but, she suffered so much for you, she endured things she wouldn't have, had she not needed to protect you. You don't need to love her, the way you do me. Or even speak kindly of her, she would have understood that. But if you would accept in your heart that she loved you, in spite of what wrongs she committed. Maybe you would find some peace to it. And you can have two mothers, my darling. Many do." She gave her a tight smile.

" _Did she love you_?"

The question took her by surprise, rattled something inside her she had buried ever since Serena had been placed upon her arms.

"You speak differently of her than anyone. Even Maester Creylen. In your stories she is different."

"In my stories she is human, my darling. They did not know her like I did."

No one knew her like Sansa did, no one ever would. Not even her daughter, Joanna would never know her like Sansa did. Her fears and her heartbreak, her viciousness and how gentle her hands could be. The difference between her smiles and her smirks. The cruelty. The different amounts of cruelty she wielded as both a weapon and a caress. Did anyone know? Maybe Jaime. The desperation in his face when Sansa had told him she would not see her die, the meaning. Would he have understood, would he have ridden all through the Seven Kingdoms if he did not know her like Sansa did? So many years had passed, Sansa could no longer tell.

"Would she say the same of you were she alive? Did she love you? Because even in your stories it seems very unlike her to trust her child to someone."

"Cersei didn’t love in the way that you recognize love, Jo. Her mother died very soon, her father was a harsh man, her marriage was a cruel one, and her brother’s love was sometimes vicious. The soft way you know love to be was foreign to her. You should understand that besides you, I was all she had left. Of the life she had once had. Of whom she was. I was the last remembrance of who she was, who she had been. I was the only person alive that knew her. The Queen. The Mother. The player and the lion. I don't think she trusted me, she trusted no one," Sansa told her simply.

Joanna narrowed her eyes, much the way Cersei used to. "You're not telling me something. Did _you_ love her?" Sansa’s hands stopped in Joanna’s hair and she could tell how they shook.

It took all she had inside to say it, without her voice shaking. “My darling, I am very tired. You can sleep here if you wish but let us not speak of this now. Please,” she asked of her.

Joanna nodded but frowned. She could not understand, though she eagerly went over the covers and held on to her, hiding her face in her blood tinted hair.

“Tell me of the Blackwood boy, so we might fall asleep with happy thoughts,” Sansa questioned her, not wanting her to fall asleep amidst stories of burned septs and cruel men.

“Mother!” Her golden girl reddened the same colour as her mother’s hair as she told her in whispers of the emerald necklace he had sent her, payed for by his earnings as a knight. How kind and earnest he sounded in his letters as he told her of his exploits to make himself worthy of the Light of Winterfell.

 _He sounded like a green boy_ , Sansa thought. _Good_. Green boys wanted to know love and be worthy of it. Green boys didn’t seek crowns and power. Green boys wanted to live a song, be brave knights and save maidens and children. Green boys could be put in their place should they ever cross boundaries. Sansa could scare green boys. Cersei would have accepted a green boy for a Lord consort for her child. She would have wanted someone soft, Sansa too.

“ _Is she ready?_ ”

They stood over the battlements as they often did, when discussing uncomfortable matters. Barbrey was growing old, her hair almost completely white and the creases on her face deeper. Her sharpness continued as ever, which made the silence ever more concerning. A mother would have been a few years younger than her, had she lived.

“This seems a rather poor time for you to be coy, my ladies,” she told them sternly.

Wylla was as jovial as she ever was, with her green braid and her lowcut dresses. Her fast wit and her eagerness to serve her. Yet she too remained silent.

“She excels at her lessons, as Her Grace is well aware. A true gift for numbers and a natural at warcraft. She could endure a siege any day of the week, yet-” the fact that it was Maester Creylen the first to draw breath, spoke volumes to her. Never would Barbrey let a Westerlander speak before her.

Barbrey sighed but finally spoke. “She is _too_ merciful. Light with punishment and quick with reward. Which with a Lannister I would say is rather a blessing if she was our opponent, yet, we want her to endure. Not be led by her good heart into an early grave.”

A Tytos Lannister instead of a Tywin. Who could have expected. More a Tommen than a Joffrey.

“That can be fixed. We have a year still. We can -”

“I don’t think Her Grace quite understands,” Wylla said, rather boldly. “It isn’t that she is merciful by nature or kinder that the average person, that she doesn’t know that an abled body man stealing 3 times wagers a cut hand. It’s that she is afraid that they will call her Cersei Lannister, so she lightens her blow. She is afraid that she will disappoint you,” she told her and held her breath for her response.

“I see.” Sansa hummed. “Thank you for your council, you are dismissed.” They curtsied and prepared to leave. “Not you, Barbrey.”

“Do I treat them differently? Does Joanna feel that I would step back were she to have a heavier hand?”

Barbrey shook her head. “In truth you dote on her. Perhaps because she is your first child, or because you are aware she will someday leave you.” She shrugged. “But if I were to say you have a favourite, it would be Joanna. Not that she notices.”

“She doesn’t?”

“Gods, no. She is eager to please you. Wants nothing more than to be your mirror. She is terrified of being more like _her_ , than she is like you. That must be tiring. To always be mindful of everything she does,” she pondered while giving her a knowing look by the corner of her eye.

“And Serena? Does she notice?”

“Serena is the daughter of the Queen. She needs not doubt anything, it comes naturally. She has this little mask like you, with her courtesies, hides her dislikes and tempers her likes, to emulate a perfect composed Queen of Winter and it comes so very naturally. Joanna has rage inside of her. And sorrow, a very great sorrow that she is not your trueborn daughter. It isn’t that she is less skilful at her courtesies than Serena, it is that she has more to hide. I don’t think Serena notices your special care with Joanna, but children are known to be more perceptive than they let on.”

Sansa nodded slowly. Her parents favourites had always been known to her. She would never allow Serena to know that pain.

“You want to tell me something. Say it,” she told Barbrey who had been sighing and playing with her hands for quite too long.

“There are two of you. There is Sansa Stark and then there is the Queen of the North. Serena can see both. When she is with family, just like you, she changes and becomes much like I imagine you were in your youth. The same way you become softer, around family. Joanna never changes, she keeps her courtesies on at all times, perhaps afraid that if she stops, she will feel all the rage and sorrow she keeps well-hidden and turn into a lion, when she would rather be a wolf.”

“What do you propose I do then?”

Barbrey took a deep breath. “I won’t pretend I understand your feelings for the fallen Queen, nor that I approve of them. Yet I too have hated a man and serve his child, with honour, so I can say I am not a complete ignorant to tangled feelings. I understand hate, Your Grace. I understand loathing. I understand service and loyalty. And most of all I understand mourning. I have mourned for half of my life. You have made yourself irrevocably alone in your grief for a woman you hate. And yet, not entirely… I propose that you let the Lady Joanna know that besides Sansa Stark and the Queen in the North, there is also someone who has just as much rage as her and three times the sorrow. Yet I am old and brittle, what do I know, I never had children,” she laughed in her dark way of hers. “Let her see your grief and allow both of you to mourn together. That is what I propose,” she told her, quickly bowing and leaving her to her thoughts, not giving her time for an answer that would never come.

“You’re frightened,” her brother commented, his emotionless voice echoing in the hollow room.

“I’m losing my daughter. I suppose it was to be expected.” She shrugged.

They went to Harrenhall first. Before Casterly Rock. Joanna had to make her oaths to her King, before taking her place as the Lady Lannister. She had done so beautifully. In a green dress, and glowing jewels, she had bowed to Brandon Stark, the Raven King and made her oath of allegiance and loyalty. And Sansa had smiled in her place beside him, knowing that had she made her oaths to a new King, she no longer was the daughter of a Queen. She had released herself from the North and from its mistress. She was Joanna Lannister now, the Lady of the West. And Sansa, her mother for ten and six years, was simply a foreign Queen to her, in the eyes of the world.

Brienne had refused to see the child. Sansa had understood. She had the face of the Lannisters, the face of the man she had loved and of the woman who had robbed him of her. The movements of the woman who had allowed it, the courtesies to match. Sansa too had betrayed Brienne in a way.

Bran shook his head. “Not about her. Not only.”

“I haven’t seen you in ten and six years. Not a word as well. Just your Hand’s ink on parchment. Shall I tell you of the news of the North? You have nieces. Stark and Tully beauties, each of them. Meera Reed also had children. Beautiful dark boys, with long faces named for her brother and father. I wonder if you care?”

He clenched his jaw and Sansa felt almost victorious. If the sorrow didn’t swallow her for having raised a weapon against her baby brother. Mother’s favourite. Mother would have stricken her for this. Bastards and Lannisters, she might have understood. But a hand against Bran was a hand best cut off.

“Forgive m–“

He raised but a hand and silenced her. She hadn’t been silenced in years, yet it wasn’t a feeling easily forgotten. Or habit easily broken. She leaned back into her chair.

“ _Everyone is your enemy, everyone is your friend... every possible series of events is happening all at once. Live that way and nothing will surprise you. Everything that happens will be something that you've seen before._ ” The words chilled something inside her she would like to forget she still possessed. “Baelish was good with words. Sometimes he even got them right.” He shrugged. “I see it all. Like you, better than anyone in the world can imagine. I choose not to play, I was never taught how to, I suppose. I leave it to the ones that do and only intervene when necessary. It has led us _here_. Do you regret my choices? They are only a reflection of yours, my Queen, for I have allowed you each and every one of them. For I leave the game to you and others. As we speak Arianne plays as well. Yara Greyjoy. I could say so many names. I move when there is no other choice. And the game goes on.”

Sansa said nothing. Sansa Stark answered not to the three-eyed-raven.

“When I first saw you walk these halls in the Tully blue we so favour, just as clearly I saw you draped in Targaryen red, Jon’s babe being ripped from your birthing bed, Daenerys cradling it in her arms and naming it her heir. I have seen you dead by dragon fire. I have seen you married off to one of Arianne’s cousins, spending your years happily in the Water Gardens. I have seen you as Lady of Winterfell, married to Jon Stark who you named Lord. I have seen Robb survive the Red Wedding and you being married to a Frey. I have seen you killed by wights and I have seen you dead by crueller hands. I have seen _myself_ too, married to Meera and a child named Catelyn, the same way I have seen myself walking on my legs. Sometimes I wake up and I don’t know which of these are true. Sometimes I wake and mourn you though you are alive. Sometimes I wake and believe Rickon stands at your side and I rejoice until I remember again.” He held her eyes carefully. “We do what we must, don’t we sister? Who knows that as well as _us_?”

“Did Kingslanding have to burn?” her question echoed. As it had for years in the back of her mind.

“She lived by fire and blood. Something would always have to burn. It was always there; in every sequence of events I saw. Kingslanding. The Riverlands. Winterfell. Dorne. She would always burn something. If Kingslanding were to burn she would die with it. Jon would be led to kill her. Swiftly. _So be it_. Jon would be exiled. One less war. Not another Dance of Dragons. The House of Targaryen buried to the ground, the same way I drowned the last dragon in the Red Sea. No more dragons, no more wights. No more ice and no more fire. A chance at peace. _I_ took it. _You_ did the same.”

“ _I_ didn’t know. If I had killed her in Winterf-”

“At what cost? What might have Westeros lost? You were too great of a loss, Sansa Stark. Every time you die the North crumbles. When you fall the Riverlands can’t rise. The Vale only stands with you and the West lives by your grain. Had you poisoned her then, had you died in the process, the wars for power would have lasted decades. Arya wouldn’t have known rest. Arya would have destroyed without mercy. Jon would have gone mad. Cersei would have been more reckless. Wildfire and Dragon fire against one another, Kingslanding worse than ash.”

“It doesn’t matter now does it. There is ash still upon the floor and Kingslanding is a ghost that shall never know rest. We are responsible, are we not, more than anyone, we are responsible. _Us_. Brandon and Sansa Stark, King and Queen of these lands. Trueborn children of Catelyn Tully and Eddard Stark. We too bear guilt.”

He raised a brow. “Are we?”

“Surely, we weren’t on top of a dragon or with a raised sword in hand, but aren’t those lives consequences of what we didn’t do?”

“Sometimes not doing something is the hardest thing of all.” He shrugged and narrowed his eyes. “And are we? Their trueborn children, are we? Is that why we are Kings and Queens, my dear sister? You would have been a wife and I would have been a knight, maybe a maester, had we been allowed to be their trueborn children. If Westeros hadn’t demanded more of us, the world, the powers at play, the gods, if you call them so. We were given to those who would shape us. Even if some had more importance than others. It was the road it took, to lead us here.”

“And Jon?”

Brandon sighed. “The song of ice and fire. It has to stop playing for the wars to die with it. War does not belong on a throne. War makes soldiers, it does not make rulers. Blood has to be paid for with blood. A never-ending cycle. Do you understand?”

“Serena -”

“ _The blood of wolves and trouts and nothing more,_ you said it, your blood bide it so. There is power in words. In what we tell ourselves and those around us. Much could have been prevented, if Daenerys Targaryen hadn’t forbidden herself of looking back. If others had spoken other truths to her. If she had chosen to believe them. There is no dragon blood that survives you, oh Sansa, the tamer of lions and beasts of legend,” he almost smiled as he said it. “You are frightened, tell me why.”

Sansa swallowed drily. “Is Joanna my daughter or Cersei’s?”

Brandon gave her a loud laugh and a hollow one, it chilled her bones.

“That is not the question you seek answer to. Are you Cersei’s daughter or Catelyn’s?” He cocked his head to the side. “And why must you choose? You told Joanna yourself, many have more than one mother.”

Sansa sighed and stopped lying, felt the weight of it settling on her chest, the words weighing on her heart. “Did she lie? On that chamber all those years ago, when she… when she claimed me daughter. Was it just a play to have me keep Joanna later on or did she mean it? Tell me Bran.”

“You’re so frightened she was right, yet so eager for me to tell you she believed it. Why is that? Why do you want her claim to be true and the knowledge to be false? I admit I am at a loss, dear sister.”

“You were mother’s favourite Bran. Do you remember?”

“I do,” he sounded sorrowful as he said it, and so very young. “Yet, she went to Robb.”

She shook her head. “It makes it no less true, that you were the light of her heart, even if her duty took her elsewhere. I do not wish to be the Queen Cersei was-”

“You are not.”

“Yet, I want…” She shook her head; she wasn’t sure how to put it to words. “Have you ever met another like you? Another that could understand you being what you are?”

“I have.”

“Could you have turned into him?” He nodded. “I know it in my bones I could have turned into her. I know it in my blood that in one of those dreams of me that you have, in one of them I become her. It would settle something in me, that she could see my face in the mirror too, just as I saw hers. That there was someone who understood.”

He nodded solemnly and took a deep breath. “Dying women tell no lies. _A younger and more beautiful Queen to cast her down and take all she held dear_ , there was a prophecy, decades in the making. She gave you her child and named you her heir. She meant it. She named you Queen and she named you daughter _,_ most of all. She wanted to be victorious, and how could she not be if one of her daughters had a throne. Such relief she felt, when she looked at you and saw a kinder self, with whom to place her daughter. _Only a Lannister can truly love another Lannister_. She claimed you and made herself a victor in the prophecy that had always dragged her down.”

She let go of her breath. “Thank you Bran.”

“You were Rickon’s favourite,” he told he as she eagerly slipped into her thoughts.

“Hum?”

“I was mother’s favourite. You think no one favoured you. You’re wrong. Rickon did. He was a babe and forgot mother’s face years before he ever forgot your own. For years in his mind he called you mother. I saw you name your sons Rickon so many times. You have no idea,” he told her with the most disturbing smile she had ever bore witness to.

Her eyes were filled with tears and she could barely stand his presence. She locked eyes with him more forcefully.

“Knowledge has made you cruel Brandon,” she told him, like she wanted to so many years before when he had called her beautiful on her wedding night.

He shrugged. “Truth is often cruel. Who would know that better than you? It is truly a comfort to have you here sister. Forgive me that I can’t offer the same, I quite wish I could,” he sounded honest as he said it, even as she saw the Three-eyed-raven so plainly on his face.

“Do you wish to be loved Bran?” she asked all of the sudden.

He cocked his head to the side. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“I supposed so. I love you brother, though it is hard at times,” she pushed herself to say.

He shrugged. “I know. We dance with our ghosts, do we not? Sansa, you and I, sister, we who always shared all those songs between us. We are built for winter, you and I. And I most of all.”

When they arrived at Casterly Rock, she was very mindful of appearances. She dressed Joanna in a beautiful ornamented red dress that covered her neck to toe. She would protect her child from hungry glares if it was the last thing she did. She dressed her like a princess, a child one. Her girl had protested. She had never worn such constricting gowns, but she understood the need to arm herself.

Opposite to Joanna she wore a yellow dress, in the fashion Cersei had liked so much with her open boat neckline. She didn't wear her crown but braided her hair atop her head as if it was one. There was nothing that covered her scars, in fact it made a showing of it. A reminder. It showed them who she was. What she had endured. What she had conquered. She could have worn red.

She could have spoken to their memory of Cersei Lannister, her robe and the colour she favoured it in. No one would have shamed her for wearing it, red was her colour by Tully roots. She went with yellow. Her hair was red enough, she donned both of Lannister colours, it wasn't Cersei she wanted to look like. She wanted to look like the perfect Lady Lannister. The perfect lioness. She wanted their awe, for in their admiration they would fear her and be remembered of old tales where she bended all the lions to her will, far more dangerous beasts than they could ever achieve to be. And yellow was demure. Yellow showed she followed her daughter. A loyal supporter instead of the hand behind the puppet they believed her to be. Even if her hair brought to mind the crown she had left at home.

Joanna walked first. Regal and straight. Chin held high. Sansa remembered every face that bowed and the amount of time they took to do it. Each sneer and each smile. Every person that bowed lower once Sansa passed them. And the ones that stood. Sansa saved each and every face in her memory to ask Maester Creylen at a later time. She had never stopped being a player. It was so ingrained in her head as her crown. _There are lessons that never leave us_ , the lioness of the rock had once said. She tended to agree. Never did the game had higher stakes than in this moment.

She had brought an army West. She wasn't planning on using it. But she was planning on showing it. The strength of the North. The strength Joanna could call upon the West should it defy her. They would know her to be as much her daughter as Cersei Lannister's. She was not alone here. To be abandoned to her lords. No. She was the lion cub of Sansa Stark. She would never be alone while she lived.

They arrived in front of Adam Marbrand. At the edge of Casterly Rock’s seat, where all the Lion Lords had taken their place. Where Tywin Lannister had ruled from. He unsheathed his sword and neither of them flinched.

"My Lady, the West is yours." He held the sword in his palms and offered it to her.

Joanna took the sword from his hands, as Arya had trained her to do so effortlessly, so gracefully. "Casterly Rock is thankful for your service, Ser. You have served us well, to our undying remembrance."

Still with the sword in her hands, Joanna turned to her people, raising it in the air, as she proclaimed loudly " _The lions have returned_!"

The people cheered. The people clamoured. And Joanna Lannister rose.

There was a feast in her honour, as it was to be expected. The return of the Lioness had to be celebrated.

Joanna seemed happy. They spun her around the room. Each Lord eager to have her in his arms to take a closer look, each Lady interested in sharing words with the Lady of The Rock. The ladies she had brought from the North, the ones that would stay with her. Myriame Manderly would be her chief-lady-in-waiting, Robyn Ryswell, one of Barbrey’s nieces would stay with her as well, Bethany, the oldest one, would take the Dustin name and be Barbrey’s heir, her brothers’ had offered her all her spares, but Barbrey would only take the sharp lass, that had been named for her beloved sister. And a couple other girls from lower, but loyal northern houses who would stay with her, were already integrating amongst the Westerlander lords and ladies, mindful of their duties.

“You’re as radiant as ever, _my Queen_ ,” he whispered in her ear making goose bumps on her skin.

“Lord Brax, we are ever so delighted to see you,” she said in a jovial effort he would never fall for. “You have been missed,” she told him, as she pointed to the chair beside her as Maester Creylen made himself scarce.

 _He hadn’t,_ she assured herself. Many Westerlander Lords made their way North. To either see the Lady Joanna or herself, her halls always received at least five of her Lords all around the year, every year. Lord Brax was ever present. He was the first son of a third son, never believed to have a chance to end up as the head of his ancient seat, yet there he was. Lord Brax of Hornvale.

He hadn’t been Lord Brax the first time he had visited her halls. Only the last. Before then, he had just been _Robert_. A few years older than her, and in no position to have entertained ambitions of his own, her daughter’s Lords had sent him because he was a charming man. Had the dark looks of his Blackwood grandmother, tall and handsome, and ever so amusing. They had sent many more than just him, they wouldn’t place their bets on only one horse. They had sent her all kinds of men, fair and dark, tall and short, funny and morose. Even sent a woman or two, since Cersei hadn’t been particular with her choice of bedfellows they felt it was worth a shot. They had spent years of her reign trying to understand her tastes, to finally be able to have a lord of their own on her ear. She had entertained Robert in her bed, for quite some time she did. He had made her feel young, which was undoubtedly a skill when one took a look at the weight on her shoulders. And by the Gods, he was _skilful_. Yet, she shared nothing of statecraft matters with him, and she was quick to realize he never really cared for them either way, as the men they sent her only doubled, when he was allowed in her bed.

“I quite doubt that, Your Grace,” he mumbled behind a cup of summer wine he drank in one swoop.

The last time she had seen him, his uncle had just died without issue, and he – once again, since Tytos Brax had been a Bracken hostage – became the heir to Hornvale. And heirs had to be married. He came to tell her, the poor fool, must have rode like a madman, without sleep, to tell her, he would have a keep and a wife of his own. Joanna had been ten years of age then and Serena almost eight. Sansa had been nearing her thirty and he…. She had sent him away. They had never spoken again since.

“How’s Lady Brax? Is she here?” Sansa wondered, looking around the room.

There was honour to Sansa Stark and she would never be a third party in a marriage bed. Never a Lyanna Stark. Never a Jaime Lannister.

“She’s dead.” He narrowed her eyes on her, as if she was supposed to know. “Years ago to the pox. My Cerissa survived, though, so we give thanks to the Gods,” he said, as he raised his cup in a bitter cheer.

“I’m sorry Robb -” she placed her hand on his, he was quick to let go of the cup to grab her, he was always eager to touch her, she remembered fondly “- I am.”

“You didn’t know?” he asked, playing absentmindedly with her fingers, she shook her head. “I sent a raven, I thought…” he shook his head and looked away from her.

“I didn’t receive it. I swear it,” she assured him.

“I should have known. I was always shit at swaying you their way, never the influence they hoped I would be.” He took a look around the room making sure his meaning was clear, Ser Marbrand clear in view. “They didn’t know you.” He gave her a meaningful smirk.

“They didn’t know you either. You never even tried. Else, you would have never crossed my chamber doors.” She smiled.

She had cared for this man very deeply. There had been others. A merchant and a bard, like Arya had advised so many years ago. A lesser lord as well. They had comely and honest faces. Cyvasse players with quick hands. Warriors with steady shoulders. Quick flings that never lasted more than some days, although happy ones. Men that never brought concern to her lords for they knew that, as quickly as they came, as quickly they would disappear. In the few and far in between instances they caught word of their existence, for Sansa Stark was her mother’s daughter and she carried shame for being able to take her pleasure while remaining unmarried, she liked to keep her transgressions as unknowable as possible. Their power over her inexistent and their seed never fruitful. Her lords knew her as a Queen who took lovers but never advisors in her bed. A Queen whose chamber bed was not a political board, the same way it had been with so many Kings. She gave no special favour to whomever she took in her embrace, so they needn’t worry. They trusted her judgment.

Robert had been different. Robb had been a constant, for almost five years he came and went, but they were together, they had been faithful to each other, as much as she knew, they had been faithful. Yet, she had been cautious her Lords would take offense to his presence, would think she would favour the West because of him, so in truth, those years had been harder to the West than the ones who followed after he left. Most likely the reason the raven never reached her.

“You’re turning greyish,” she commented, before her thoughts had a chance to drown her.

“We can’t all have your lucky red hair.”

“Give it some years, we’ll start to match,” she assured him, running her fingers through her now unbound locks of hair.

He snorted. “Is my Queen concerned she will lose her looks? Such a preposterous thing to consider for such a beauty. The most beautiful woman in the Seven Realms.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “You won’t say that when my beauty has left me. When I become old and grey and all my loyal bannerman cease to give me crowns of winter roses.”

She shook her head. Would Cersei ever leave her? Her eternal companion. The voice in her mind that never ceased. The fear she had grown inside her, watered like a plant by her echoing voice. With fading beauty comes fading power. A flower has no use when she no longer has petals. Such ridiculous thoughts that never left her. Such vanity that served no purpose. Yet… she had once been a girl, whose only purpose was to adorn the halls of her husband, breed his healthy and beautiful children and charm their fellow lords. Once her beauty would have been the only thing to give her power, and there were fears very hard to bury.

“Of course I will. I’ll be just as grey, a little older. And you’ll still be a Queen, just as fierce. And ice never truly melts, not where you’re from, does it?” he attempted to jest.

She shrugged. “Beyond the Wall, perhaps. In Winterfell there is no ice to be seen. I’m a Queen of Spring as of yet, it seems. And now my Light leaves me,” she sighed as she said it, her eyes never leaving the curls of golden hair, “perhaps I’ll return to ice now. It would be fitting.”

“You made her for this. Your little lion. You basked her in greatness and prepared her for war. You knew this would come,” he said as softly as any _father_ could.

Sansa took her hand back.

“I hope you never have to leave your daughter in a battlefield full of unknown enemies. I hope the Gods spare you that hurt, my Lord Brax,” she told him swiftly.

He became serious all at once, as she was unaccustomed to seeing him. “Has my late marriage turned me into an enemy of the North now, Your Grace?”

“You tell me,” she was quick to answer back.

He seemed hurt as he turned his face from her, and she regretted her words immediately. Cursed the words that would leave his mouth even before he said them.

“That marriage was arranged for me and I complied when you gave me no other option – I was a true and honest husband to Jeyne as _you_ bid me so. You told me to leave your halls and I left them.” He leaned closer so only she could hear him. “I was no _Jon Snow_.”

“There was no other option I could give you. You needed heirs; I would not deliver them. You needed a wife; I could not be so. And I will not be a mistress. What else could have been done?”

“I had brothers,” he mumbled. “I wasn’t irreplaceable, I could have refused the Lordship,” he murmured.

Sansa shook her head. “You would have been resentful one day. It was your ancestral home, the lordship of the great House of Brax. Of course you could not refuse.”

“I would have for you, and I told you so. You knew I meant it. I am nothing like _him_.”

She took a hand to his cheek to make him face her. She would have never been so forward in the North. Never so in public, even if they knew who he was to her. This was the West, they knew of their relationship, they were only upset they hadn’t been able to profit from it. And by this time, all well deep in their cups, the love affairs of the Queen in the North were simply another song they would hear from time to time.

And Sansa was feared in the West. Fear wasn’t lost just because she recognized a lover in public. Much less since they knew her to have made away with him, the only one of them that had managed to fall in her good graces. In the North she was respected and loved, their propriety was different, and they would have taken offense to her show of tenderness not to one of their own.

“I know you are not. Yet, you wanted a child of your own. Only Jeyne could have given you that.” He placed his hand over hers eagerly. “You are not my enemy. And you have been missed, Robb. You have. Even Lady Barbrey speaks fondly of your Cyvasse matches,” she tried to jest.

He took a deep breath. “I’ll stay in Casterly Rock. As long as you feel she will need an ally,” he promised, before she could ask, taking a weight from her chest. She could have loved him just for that in another life. “And once she has no need of me, once the West submits entirely to your bright girl. Might I entertain the hope of becoming the West’s ambassador to the North once again?”

Sansa laughed, but frowned when he got up and offered his hand.

“You’re dying to dance, I can tell. Go on now, they’re too scared to ask, my fellow lords. It seems you must contend with me, my Queen,” he dared her, deviously. Sansa was quicker to take his hand than she would ever admit to Arya, once she was back in Winterfell.

"She will have to marry now that she is home."

"The candidate has been chosen," Sansa told him with a raised brow. "And you were informed of it quite early on, Ser."

"A husband from the West would be much more suitable, my lady." He turned to Joanna as he said it. "What about Lord Swyft, you seemed fond of him during the feast, my Lady," he proposed.

"I know exactly what a Lord from the West would be, Ser," Joanna smiled as she said it. A Cersei kind of smile.

A husband from the West would control her. A husband from the West would take her place. A husband from the West would be her lord and master, _not_ her consort.

“To consolidate your claim, my Lady-”

Joanna gave a hollow laugh and Sansa masked her smile. “Consolidate my claim, Ser? Against whom? Am I not the only Lannister alive, emerald eyes and golden locks to prove it. Was it not King Brandon himself who in his wisdom anointed me Lady of the Rock? Liege and Lady Protector of the West. Would the North not seek retribution for aid given all these years to this realm, were I not to be given my rightful place? Then pray tell, Ser, what do _I_ need to consolidate?” she asked him, head cocked to the side in challenge.

“Forgive me, my Lady, for my impertinence.” He bowed his eyes, yet his eyes drifted to Sansa, who only narrowed them.

"As my mother said, a candidate for Lord Consort has been chosen and a contract drafted. The West won't start now failing at its word, and the Gods know how dearly the West requires the manpower the Blackwood House can offer, should the need arise" she told him, sternly, reminding the room of the Bread Riots not so long ago.

Marbrand looked between them. Joanna had called her _mother_. Whatever strife he hoped to find between them was not there, he couldn't take advantage of the girl's loneliness, of her resentment towards her wardeness. Nor her lack of guidance. She was Sansa Stark’s child and would listen to her mother. He could hope for no power if he were to turn against her.

He sighed. "As you command, my Lady. Shall we take a look at the at the accounts then?"

Sansa took Lord Addam in, as Joanna retrieved towards her chamber. He had grown old and grey and fat in his comforts. But his eyes were still sharp, and his hand firmly placed upon the pommel of his sword at all times, like the soldier he had been in his youth.

"I will be leaving soon, I’m needed North."

Barbrey was ill and she didn’t want to overcharge her with her duties.

"We will wish you safe travels, Your Grace."

Sansa hummed. "I have loved her with the same fierceness with which I love the daughter of mine own blood. I have loved her as if she was a Stark of Winterfell and raised her to be a Lannister, against my own nature."

"And we are thankful, Your Grace. "

Sansa smiled. "Do you remember the conversation we had in my chambers all those years ago, in Riverrun? When we decided her fate?"

"I do." He nodded solemnly.

"Did you find me fearsome then? A woman's fierceness of course, unlike your own, that has no need of swords."

He took a deep breath and sighed. "I suppose, I did," he admitted bitterly.

She hummed. "Motherhood makes beasts of us all. The lengths to which we would go for our children. The blood we could spill. I had no fear of blood back then, I had seen plenty and bled more. Yet, my children made the amount of blood I was able to spill then – in good conscious – seem like a drop to what I am prepared to spill now, in their name." She turned to him.

"You have served us well, Ser Marbrand. Do not think I take it lightly. I am a thankful woman and I trust that you will continue to do so. I remember Cerelle Lannister, so very well from my history lessons. Should anything similar happen to Joanna, trust that I will act accordingly. Like Cersei Lannister did to Ellaria Sand, are you familiar with that story?" He nodded quickly. "It has been lovely to be here. The Rock is truly a wonder of the Seven Kingdoms. I will visit again soon enough. We will see each other again, I’m sure."

The small rebellions she had crushed by selling them cheap grain to feed the hungry, by sending abled man to do the fighting. She had protected this man too, for years she had kept the promises she made him on those chambers, years ago. She could destroy him just as easily, should he prove himself an oathbreaker.

Before she left the Rock, she took the girl's porcelain face in her hands, surprised the girl with the public show of affection.

"There was no one in the world that knew me better than Cersei Lannister. No one," she said it because Joanna needed to know.

Because this would help her make herself. This would stop making her tiptoe between them both. Making her chose the image Sansa let on, from who she was hoping for approval, thinking it was conditional to her differences from Cersei.

“And I did mourn her death. At a time I thought there were no more tears for me to waste, I mourned her death. I still do, sometimes, when I feel particularly alone. She was everything I could have become. Both she and I knew it. She knew it much sooner than me. You should know that she loved only her family and she hated the rest of the world. But you should also know that from everyone, she hated me less. And when there was no one else _I_ was everything to her. You should know that I considered her a mother once. And she was my most important mentor. I saved myself a couple of times considering what she would do in my place. I was her little dove, she always called me that," she confessed almost lost in her memories.

Sansa had tears in her eyes, it was unbecoming, but she needed to know.

"And you should know that there are days when I look in the mirror and she is _all_ I can see. There are many days when I am more Cersei Lannister than I am ever Catelyn Tully, and at times, it frightens me. Sometimes I will hear myself roar for my children and be sure that I would roar for you. I would become a lion to get you back should you ever know harm in these golden halls. I would let the North fall if it meant keeping both you and your sister safe. I want you to know it. That no horror that happened to me, I would allow to befall you. That I would let honour and duty be damned for my children, and only for them. My darling, precious girl," she swore, with better bindings than any heart tree could ever provide to be.

She cleaned the tears running down Joanna's face, like Cersei had done to her, once, _so_ long ago.

"You don't have to choose between her and me. Because I never chose between her and my mother. You are brave like her, but careful like me. You have her rage and my control. You have her beauty and my courtesies. Take the best of hers and of mine. For I have my faults too, like any woman or man. And know that I would love you either way, for you are my precious daughter _. I held you first_. She made me swear on her deathbed that you would be no one else but ours and I have kept my promises to her. You are the lion cub of Sansa Stark. That is what you are. You are more me than I am myself some days. I am fearsome too, my girl. I have been Cersei Lannister to some. There are those that speak of me the same way they speak of Cersei. It is important that you accept what you are. For all her faults Cersei knew who she was and never considered herself anything different. On the contrary Daenerys Targaryen saw a hero and liberation on the trail of blood she left behind her. For all her faults Cersei was never mad or delusional. Your uncle Tyrion saw brilliance in the mistakes he made, tried to convince himself of it to all his might, bethrew your own darling sister, a princess to a third son. And your father - " Sansa had never called him by that, she never mentioned him at all, just like with Jon" - your father feared not cruelty, but he saved an entire city forsaking his honour. And he came to fight in Winterfell for a safer world for you. He was not blameless, and he was not particularly kind, but he did what he could for family, like your mother. And like me. You have been taught well, my love. I have taught you all that I know. I have seen darkness and I have turned away. There is blood on my hands, surely, but I have done more good than harm and the blood I have spilled was for other people wouldn't have to. Take my lessons and my heart, take your mother's drive and her bravery, and make us proud. As you have done so many times before. And never fear, for I will never turn away from you to my dying day, I swear, on my honour as a Stark, on my duty as a Tully, on my… strength as a Lannister."

"I do not know how to be without you mother," she clang to her hands like she would as a child.

"Nor do I without you. We will have to learn. I will write often, and you will do the same. The way I taught you." Codes carefully crafted so they wouldn't be able to know what was between them. "But I will always be with you. Should you find yourself in dire need you will write to uncle Edmure first and he will answer the call. The Riverlands will come to your aid first should you need it. And I will follow."

The Riverlands were closer to the west than Sansa could ever be, and they wanted Joanna strong and leading. That was why she bethrew her to Alyn Blackwood, the youngest boy of the family, far too much removed by his four siblings and their children to ever have entertained ambitions of power. They were stronger than the Tullys and closer to the north, their families having been united many times before. The Blackwoods followed the old gods and they liked her, with her red hair and her dead direwolf. Her wolf had died in the Riverlands, her heart died today as she left her daughter here. The Blackwoods had so many times been ruled by strong women. She had to trust they would not overstep.

"You will give yourself on your wedding, no man shall lead down the sept, not Ser Marbrand, not Lord Brax, it _must_ be you. To show that you are your own mistress. Do you understand?” Joanna nodded. “Should your husband ever present himself unkind to you. Should he ever raise a hand or a fist -"

Joanna took a deep breath. "I will remind him that I am the daughter of Sansa Stark and Cersei Lannister and the next time he raises a hand to me, will be the last time. But more gently, so as to not offend his manly sensibilities. And I will tell you right away."

Sansa reminded herself of the lessons Arya had taught her niece. Of the dagger always wrapped around her thigh. She had to trust it would be enough, should ever the time come when she would need it.

Sansa smiled. "And should he usurp you?"

Joanna clenched her jaw and answered all the same. "He will never have enough confidence with my lords to do so. He will be supervised at all times by a northern escort. Even if I trust him. And especially after I have a child."

"Which one?"

"Wyll Manderly, for they are our closest bannermen and wouldn't turn from you without great offense. And because his mother will become your Hand and he has always looked up to you as you always treated him as a trueborn. And he is young and comely, easy to confide in."

"And about your grandfather?"

To her great surprise it had been Arya herself who taught Joanna of Tywin Lannister. Sansa hadn’t asked and Arya hadn’t found the heart to speak of the subject with her yet educated Joanna on what she knew of the man and prepared her along side Master Creylen on what she would need to know of the Great Lord Lannister. 

Joanna clenched her jaw. "I will speak of him often and reverently, even when it pains me to do so."

"And about me?"

"Only when necessary.” Sansa nodded. “And you will be fearsome in my stories. And lovelier than any other woman alive. And me and Serena will bethrow our children one day, and they will know all about their grandmother, and the Queen that you are, that all the stories are true about you. And they will sing them too mother, my children will always sing of you. You will be loved in Casterly Rock, the same way I love you. You will never be replaced in my affections, I couldn’t have asked for a greater blessing than to have had you as my mother, and I thank Cersei every day for having made it so," tears ran down her face as she said it, and Sansa too could barely force herself to speak.

"And about your sister - "

"I will love her more than myself, like you love us. For I am your oldest child and she will always be able to find safe haven with me. I will keep to my own and to my northern blood."

"Your children's names?"

"Lannister names. Known ones."

"You are my pride Joanna. No one has ever given me such joy as you. Being you mother has been one of the most important things in my life, my legacy. I knew who I was when I took you in my arms and made myself a mother, and never did I truly know love before you. Goodbye my dearest, be sure of the armies I would raise for you. No daughter of mine will ever be a pawn. You are the child of two Queens. They will learn to fear you, should they ever try to harm you. I love you more than life, my darling, my dearest, be safe."

She held her in her arms for the longest of times and once she had to turn away she knew her heart would never be whole again, for she left half of it in Casterly Rock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I took a long time updating but I did write 15000 words to try and make it up. Good news exam season ended yesterday, so I have a lot more free time. So I'll be a lot faster now.
> 
> I did a couple of risky choices this chapter. A lot of you asked for Sansa to have a man who loved her and I really wanted to comply. Also, with Bran I went more with the version from the show, but still with a heart, I hope that wasn't a problem for anyone. 
> 
> I have 2 questions I would really appreciate your opinion on, because I'm really not sure:  
> 1\. would you like a last jon/sansa moment for the last chapter?  
> 2\. and would you like an epilogue, I'm thinking a page from Maester Creylen's book in a chapter 10?
> 
> As always thank you soooo much for reading and commenting, you always make my day!


	9. Radiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cersei's children had been a source of her power. Sansa's were only a reflection of hers.

Past

She had avoided her chambers as long as she could. There had been things said that could not be unspoken. Ghosts that had been rattled and demanded retribution. Yet Cersei had complained of pain and the servants came first to her, after Maester Tarly had been summoned.

Cersei eyed her carefully from under her covers as the Maester made his way from her, casting his eyes down so he wouldn’t have to face either of them. He hadn’t been this terrified of wights, if she remembered correctly.

“I won’t leave you this soon, sweetling, it’s only false labour. I had it with my first born as well. A bit of milk of the poppy, since wine has been denied from me, it will do,” she assured her with little concern.

Sansa nodded slowly. “I will leave you to your dreams then.”

Cersei gave a hollow laugh. “Nonsense. You have avoided me long enough. And the little man, barely gave me enough to sleep. Pitiful thing he is, not much for a supposedly learned man, is he? You mustn’t be selfish and stay with me. Only the Gods can say how many moments you’ll still have with me. It is your duty to bear them with grace, come along now,” she commanded her, looking at the chair near the bed.

Sansa sighed yet complied. They stared at one another in a challenge for a bit, until Cersei smiled, having found whatever it was that she was looking for in her eyes.

“The little fat Maester fears you, almost as much as he fears me. Tell me why,” she demanded of her, an eyebrow raised and both eyes sharp.

Sansa sighed but answered all the same, Sam was inconsequential now. Maybe one day, before the Battle for the Dawn when he had secrets on his tongue, tales behind his eyes, then he might have had some use. Might have revenged his burned family, might have saved some people if he had come to her and spilled his knowledge of blood. If he had come to anyone but Jon. If he chosen not to follow his friend’s judgment. Now he was just a bitter Maester, with uncomplete studies and a wife and children, and with only one secret he would dare not reveal for fear it might lead his friend to an early grave. For Maester Tarly was not confident in his own judgement, so he might find blame in her for the state of the affairs, but he would not dare challenge her.

“A friend of Jon’s from the Night’s Watch. He expected me to save him. To make him King, perhaps. I did not. Could not. I suppose it makes me fearsome to his eyes,” Sansa mused with a shrug. “Ambitious and hungry for my power, most likely.”

“It is good to be feared,” Cersei assured her, a loving hand placed upon her bump, making her words almost amusing.

Sansa hummed and gave a soft smile born of an exhaustion that settled into her bones so similar to the weight of the ghosts she carried with her. “It is better to be loved.”

She remembered her thoughts from so many years ago – a lifetime of fear. The battle of Blackwater and Cersei’s lessons. _If I am ever a Queen, I’ll make them love me._

Cersei grimaced. “You should be feared. By enemies and allies alike. For even if they are such, it is their fear of you that will prevent them from turning against you once a new threat comes to take what is yours.”

Sansa narrowed her eyes. “ _Make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy, if you ever hope to become Queen_ , you told me to remember that once. Was it so? With you? With your father? You weren’t more fearsome than dragons, were you? How well did fear serve you then, my Queen?”

Cersei smirked. Loudly, in the way only she could. Which told Sansa she was losing at their little spar.

“The North loved the Starks. Better than any realm and their liege Lords, the North loved the Starks. How did it go? The saying? Oh, I remember – _the North knows no King, but the King in the North, whose name is Stark_. But then they feared the Boltons and their love wasn’t quite as strong as their fear, was it? Did their love serve you then, Sansa, my dove.” Her smile was triumphant. “Love _ensures_ for a while. It does, I’m sure. But if there is no fear, love crumbles very easily in the face of threats, challenged with fear.”

Sansa nodded slowly. “For Nobles and Lords, high and mighty. That’s true. But for the people?” She shook her head, remembering Old Nan, her flayed body. “The people are more loyal with their love, are they not? When you rung the bells it was told they clamoured for you. Was that true? They thanked Queen Cersei for asking for mercy. And Daenerys burned them all because they loved you for protecting them. It appears that the people’s love isn’t as fickle as their Lords’.”

Sansa wouldn’t speak of it, but hadn’t that been the reason Margaery hadn’t endured a walk of shame? For the people loved her and the High Septon feared they wouldn’t have acted the same way they did for Cersei. It wouldn’t have amounted to the same purpose. She couldn’t be sure of his reasons, but she wouldn’t ask Cersei of them.

Cersei rolled her eyes. “The people’s love won’t keep your crown on your head.”

Sansa feigned a frown. “Their pitchforks might. They were mighty fearsome in those Bread Riots. Do you remember? Oh, they feared your son, no doubt they did, after he massacred all those Baratheon babes. Yet when their bellies growled, fear fuelled rage and we all could have died then.”

Cersei rolled her eyes but conceded.

Sansa leaned back on her chair and crossed her hands over the red bodice of her dress. She had taken to wearing red. It clashed with the white of her skin and seemed like nothing more than the continuance of the hair she had left unbound in the absence of meetings. She looked like a vision of blood. It settled something inside her – that they saw what she felt.

She dispensed with her mask. Her courtesies and careful words. She dispensed with the Stark and the Tully and the rivers of blood that were her kin and spoke truthfully now.

“I am quick with reward and heavy with punishment. There must always be balance, mustn’t there? I reward loyalty and while I do not require blind obedience, I punish dissent. I make my Lords nervous. It is acknowledged.” She shrugged. “I am only a woman. They have never been ruled by a Lady of Winterfell, the names of the Queens of Winter aren’t even known. They do not know what goes on in my mind. I am not known to show favour, the same way I am not known to show dislike. I left my own _beloved brother_ to his rightful punishment for betraying the North – a hard thing to forget – even to those who still call me a girl. At this moment Lord Glover sweats in his seat for he knows not how I will punish him for his disobedience during the Long Night. I like him nervous. Nervous lords make mistakes. He is bound to make one last mistake, the one that will lead me to take his seat and gift him to his granddaughter should he not die in the meantime. Still, most of my northern houses are almost ash. The North has been ravaged by wars and they too are ruled by young women who require my support should they aspire to keep the dead father’s and brother’s seats, from uncles and cousins that would take them from them. That makes them loyal, does it not?”

Cersei only gifted her with a smirk.

Sansa tilted her head to the side. The Dustins. The Ryswells. They bowed to the Boltons. The Cerwyns. The Glovers. Not enemies, yet not allies as well. Not to be trusted, not strong enough to be feared, yet Lady Dustin… Barbrey Ryswell Dustin could be a problem. Lord Roose Bolton had respected Lady Dustin and she feared him not, as far as Sansa knew. Lady Dustin had the might of both Ryswell and Dustin house, she was a woman to be feared and the only one who might still have the courage needed to pose a threat.

Sansa took a deep breath. “The only person who can threaten me, I made my Hand. I have honoured her above all others and made her mine – my Lady, my executioner – to the eyes of all the lords that could have sided with her against me. I have bound her to me in all the ways that matter.”

“Who would trust the dog that bites it’s master’s hand?” Cersei mused.

Sansa nodded slowly, in thought. “Indeed. Then I gifted an important position on my council to those who hate her. To my strongest bannerman, to my most loyal ones. Always watching one another. Always looking for betrayal, they’ll be. Hounds chasing their tails and looking to me for favour.”

She had learned that from Baelish. Two commanders of guard he had. Always making them suspicious of one another. Sansa had kept that particular lesson. It’s important to keep people occupied. It’s important not to let them be at ease, comfortable in their position, in their power.

“I am not a little girl. As easily as I made myself Queen, I can be unmade. Power is fickle. Loyalty, love, is built. Grain by grain. Stone by stone. Moon by moon and year by year. I am a young Queen; I cannot afford to wait for it to build. So I prepare. And maybe one day, when their bellies are full and their children are named after me, warm in castles I helped rebuild, maybe then I won’t have to be so careful. Maybe then I’ll be loved. Until then I can make myself needed. The unbending Queen in the North. Who could they replace me with?” she almost whispered.

Cersei raised a brow. “You have never been safer. And still, you’re _terrified._ Why is that,” she prodded skilfully.

Sansa took a deep breath, yet her tone was even, resigned. “Have you ever known of a Queen who lasted? We rule on borrowed time until a man comes to take our place. Should I have a son, they will make away with me and crown him, you said it yourself some moons ago, didn’t you? No woman has ever ruled Winterfell. No Lady Stark. No Queen of Winter. _Borrowed time_. That is all this is. Soon I will join you in one of the Seven Hells and we might yet haunt some halls together.”

Cersei frowned and leaned forth.

“You are the Queen. I say it to remind you of who you are, not because I enjoy it so, my dove. Before that you were a kingmaker and before that you were a pawn. You have rose and have yet to fall. Be wise and be careful but do not underestimate yourself. If you imagine yourself down a well, you will find your voice echoing there. Let fear rule you and it shall lead you to your grave. Behold _me_. You have destroyed every enemy that came your way. There were others. There _will_ be others. Perhaps more cunning. Perhaps more beautiful. And still, you are _the_ Queen.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “When has a crown ever saved anyone? You’re here. Your children… Your husband. My brother, my cousin. All the Targaryens that died with their crown firmly grasped between their claw like fingers. Tell me, did you become safer when the crown was placed upon your head? Did you become any less a woman, with a woman’s fear? Were you not also careful? Were you not also cunning? The great Cersei Lannister, the Lioness of the Rock?”

Cersei gave her a weak smile. “It took a dragon to release me from my throne. Do you think there will be more anytime soon? I managed to kill one. Do you think you are lesser that I?” She cocked a brow in challenge. Daring her to agree.

“Men are just as fearsome as beasts. Perhaps more, for they can lie,” Sansa mused with a shrug.

Cersei rolled her eyes. “You are rather tedious this morrow, Sansa, sweetling. Let me put you to rest, since you’ll have no one left once I’m gone to ease your mind,” she said it with a smile, hoping it would irk her. Sansa payed no mind to her honesty. “Do you think Robert managed his way to the throne with all these plans? Do you remember him cunning and well-learned? With quick wit and a steady head on his shoulders? _No_. He was a drunken fool who won wars. He was good at it. No doubt. I won't rob him of his only achievement. But the moment the crown was on his head that was the end of it. Jon Arryn kept the King's peace and my father paid for it. You are a woman _. It's true_. A terrible disadvantage. But sweetling, who alive could challenge you? You have won your wars. Who alive could take your throne from you? Who alive has your cunning? Your plans? Your preparation? Who has lived more than you and is willing to pay the price for challenging your rule?”

Cersei sighed. “You will never be at ease. That much is true. They would defy you much easier than they would ever do a man.” Cersei shrugged. “That is good. That keeps your alert. How many rebellions have you seen across these lands? And why ever would they start with you? Who would they give your throne to? Your sister? The bastard again? Don't be ridiculous. Themselves?” She snorted. “Look at the wreckage the Targaryens caused before people could say it was enough. I burned a Sept. People barely batted an eye. You think they will come for you simply because you could be better? Because you could be a man? You are feared Sansa. You would rather be loved. You're a girl still.” She scrunched up her nose as if it disgusted her to say it. “I understand. You can be both, can you not? Be feared by your enemies and be beloved by those who stand with you. But when you have an enemy. You cut him out. Root and stem. And you don't think twice about it, or the grief will swallow you whole. You have done all of this before. Have you regretted it then? It takes more than wits and arms to start a rebellion, it takes bravery. It takes courage. It takes will. That is hard to find. And when you find it, when you find the man that will surely come that would stand before you, chin held high, forgetting the blood you have spilled and could do so again, you show them – you remind them – who you are and what you can do. Even if you choose not to, every day. Even if you choose not to be like me every day, you remind them that you could, so very easily, and you remind them to be thankful for the mercy you show. Can you do that? Can you be a Queen who lasts?”

Could she? She had spilled blood. Petyr. The Bolton Bastard. Tyrion. It had been needed. It had been necessary. It had been the only way. Others had died for her. Dontos. Her Aunt Lysa, in a way…

“You are a God Sansa. The closest thing there is. You, and your brother. And even the Martell girl. Kings and Queens are the closest thing to Gods,” she said with such devotion Sansa could have shuddered. “Embrace it.”

“I don’t want to be God,” she half-mumbled.

The Gods were merciless. The Gods were Bran’s face as he told her she looked beautiful on her wedding night. Sansa’s breath staining Joffrey’s sword as he made her kiss it. Father and Septa Mordane’s heads on a spike. Jory Cassel. Jeyne Poole. Robb sitting on his horse, Grey Winds’ head sowed upon his body. Her mother’s throat cut to the bone, Joffrey’s wormy lips as he described it with glee. Aunt Lysa’s screams as she was pushed from the Moon Gate by the man she had loved before anyone else. The Gods were dragons, destroying whatever life they saw from their high place in the sky. The Gods were Targaryen lunacy, Targaryen pride. The Gods were fire and ice and every cruelty in between. The Gods were every tear she spilled on Kingslanding’ dry Godswood. Every tear she had refused to spill since then.

“ _Liar_.” She tilted her head to the side and eyed her carefully. “Or maybe you are not. It matters not. The children on the street will see it when you walk by them, when they pray to the Maiden it is your face they will see in their mind. Their mothers, when you give out bread on cold winters, will pray to the Mother and imagine those high cheeks of yours, just like Catelyn Tully. Their husbands when they look at you and can’t imagine a more beautiful woman to fight for. You are the closest thing they have to a God,” she told her, almost wistfully, for she had felt it once and the hunger for it was stitched upon her face.

Sansa’s lips tightened. “Why do you do that? Why do you put stone upon stone between yourself and them? Why must you be bigger?” she wondered curiously.

Cersei frowned at her as if she were the silly girl from her youth. “Because I am. I am a Lannister of Casterly Rock. Descendent from Lann, the clever, a trickster God. I am a Lioness of the West. And you are a Wolf of Winterfell, a Trout born amongst the snow. That is what we are. Why shall we call ourselves anything else? Why shall we lower ourselves in the sake of humility? Are merciful lies going to save them from starvation? From the cold of their beds? The smell of piss of their streets? Why must I lie and say I understand when I do not? That I pity them, when I do not? I have seen the worst of them, and I have no pity, I bear no goodwill, no matter how many bells I rang to try and stop the carnage,” she assured her resolutely.

“Lie?” Sansa shook her head. “You have more in common with Winterfell’s cook who lost all her children to the war than you will ever have to Lann, the Clever-” she carried on before she could disagree with her. “- I have more in common with the whore from Wintertown who has been forced on her back by cruel men than I will ever have in common with the Maiden. With my own kin, with any Tully of Riverrun or Stark of Winterfell. Fate made us noble. Gave us a name and a house, taught us to rule and them to serve, but it changed almost none of the circumstances, did it? We are still women and we are still used like any other, highborn or low. The same tragedies happen to both lords and paupers. Both were flayed on Winterfell’s grounds. Both burned on Kingslanding’s soil. And no goodwill you say? What good did you to have the bells ring? You would die either way. You rang them because you are not an emotionless beast, no matter how the Lion in you disagrees. You could have killed Tyrion so many times and still you did not. Why do you suppose that is?”

Cersei clenched her jaw more forcefully than she would normally do, so plainly in her company. So unhidden laying in the middle of the featherbed. “Shall we sing a hymn for them, Sansa, my dove. Shall we cry and mourn for their deaths and sufferings?” she prodded in a pitiful tone. “ _A woman may weep, but never a Queen._ Don’t you have enough to cry about? And yet, you are the one with all power, you are the one who can save and deliver them. You can choose to pity them if you must. I assure you, your pity won’t be as appreciated as you strength would. Symbols are important. And cruelty has its purposes. If destroying one man would prevent a hundred from rising in rebellion against the people you care so much for, you ravage that man as if he were a beast in front of a crossbow, and my dove, they will thank and celebrate you for it. And if they call you a God you will smile, for your divinity protects those who pray to you. Do you deny it?”

“I do not, and yet-”

“You would rather dispense with cruelty and be kind,” she cooed mockingly. “Then because you are not cruel you will allow cruel things to be done to you.”

Sansa raised a brow. “You speak to me of husbands then?”

Cersei gave a solemn nod, but her eyes seemed unfocused. “Of course. There is no bigger threat to a Queen, to your reign, than you Lord husband and master.”

“Heirs will be required of me. I’m the last Stark of Winterfell,” _if Arya didn’t return._

“Heirs? Surely. But you can choose a weak husband. A meek man,” she proposed with a glint in her eyes. “How many Northern men are there still for you to choose from? How strong can they be…? If you must marry, choose someone soft, my dove. A green boy. A boy who loves you, who is dazzled by you. A boy with no ambition and you keep him hidden from those that do. And then you pray. For all your might you pray, that when the time comes for your own child to carry your crown, it should be so ingrained in those red locks of yours, by years of having reminded them of the comfort of their beds, paying no tributes to the crown you separated them from. Bowing to no one else but you. Being spoon-fed by you. With your pretty little head and your cunning speeches, you can be fearsome too. After the Young Wolf, you were their true champion, were you not? Under Bolton rule without you. Weak, disgraced, honourless, thrown in a corner, like the weak little pups those northern men pretend they are not, if it wasn’t for you. Remind them. Often, by whose will they live and run free in those frozen wastelands of yours. And then, perhaps, you’ll be a Queen who lasts, unlike all those who came before…” she said in a misty daze provided by the milk of the poppy, no doubt.

“You wish for me to last?”

“You must, my dove. The Gods are merciless, but they are still the Gods. For her to live, you must be the Queen -” she murmured looking away from her and cradling her belly “- for I to last you must be the Queen. Younger and more beautiful, you _must_ reign. And be a good mother. Don’t you believe? You’ll be a good mother, do you believe?” she asked her in a very soft and dragged voice.

The noise of carriages and horses made them look towards the window. Septas. Ser Marbrand had sent for Septas. For the babe. How cruel. How dared he, without the Lord of Riverrun’s permission, without Bran’s, without hers, how dared he…

When she finally managed to look at Cersei, she found cold, glassy, emotionless eyes staring her down. She was dazed from the poppy’s milk, but still she understood – still she _feared_.

“ _Traitor_ ,” she seethed, her hands firmly placed upon her belly, her fingers trembling. When Sansa didn’t move quickly enough, she began screaming like she hadn’t ever since her first days in confinement. Got the glass from her nightstand and threw it at the wall. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” The panic on her face was what made Sansa move. The sound of the glass shattering on the wall behind her made the guards open the door immediately to let her out. Sansa quickly left. She had never seen Cersei that afraid. Never that terrified. And of women no less.

When she crossed the chamber doors, Lady Roslyn was just waiting for her. Her face red with effort from having run there most likely. Her eyes firmly cast on the floor.

“My Lord Husband and I, we did not-”

Lady Roslyn was terrified of her. Of any Stark really. The death of her kin, even if by unknown hands had been clearly the result of Stark hands or orders. Though the women and children had been left alive, Roslyn always kept her distance from her and Arya. And Bran most of all. Her uncle Edmure had wanted to name their babe Catelyn but had told her Lady Roslyn had refused without the approval of all the Stark children. The babe had needed a name then, so they had settled for Minisa.

“I know, my Lady.” Neither of them would have acted this rash. Both of them would have asked her beforehand. It was well known she was in charge of whatever predicaments involved Cersei, since she was the only one who as able to speak to her. “No Septa is allowed in that room. I will add my own men to guard it., should Ser Marbrand defy us, in such a sensitive time for the Queen,” she explained more loudly than she usually would, among the screams.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Lady Roslyn assured her, both the Tully guards echoing their Lady’s compliance.

Sansa breathed more deeply once the yelling ceased and only a small hushed shuddering was heard.

“No Maesters. Only midwives from now on. I am growing rather tired of men’s incompetence. Bring her more milk of the poppy as well. For the nightmares.” The nightmares Sansa know would surely come.

Present

"You love her more than you do me," a broken whisper came from her threshold.

Sansa was taken aback by her directness. That was all the Stark blood – _wolfblood_ , her father would call it. Arya, and what she imagined Lyanna would be, had it in plenty, had it in full. For a moment she didn't recognized her sweet mindful daughter. For a moment she didn’t recognize the Tully blood that did it’s best to temper it.

"You've grieved her for months. As if she's gone. Dead. As if there are no letters every forth night, no reports from the bards you sent there. And I'm always here," she could hear the tears in her voice, "and you don't even _see_ me. You don’t even _care_."

Sansa was quick to open her arms and Serena walked into them eagerly. Sansa held on to her steadily, making sure Serena knew she would not let go.

Sansa knew the hurt that came along with not being a parents favourite child. She knew the jealousy and the unfairness. The bitterness that grew and threatened to swallow one whole. And she knew the distance. The distance that grew with age. She would not allow it between them. Especially when it wasn’t true. Not when Serena was half of her heart, her joy, if Joanna was her pride.

"My darling pup. My dearest." Serena started to sob. "Forgive me, my darling. I love you so much, you cannot possibly imagine my love for you. Forgive me if I have failed to show it."

When she calmed down, Sansa sat with her on the bed and tried her best to explain.

"When I left Winterfell, that was the last time I saw my mother. I can't protect Joanna the way I can do you. She is surrounded by enemies who believe she is my puppet and allies who trust they can sway her. I left her in a cage I have no key to. And it pains me very much, being frightened for her. You have your mother here. Me, who would stand in front of swords for you, who would cut armies down for you. She does not. She's alone there. With just Wyll and Myriame, Lord Brax and Maester Creylen. All who wish they could be here instead of there as well. So she is in truth all alone, for her home is here and yet all the life she is supposed to live is there," Sansa tried to explain.

Her eyes were wide. "You? Frightened?"

She tucked the hair that fell in her face away. "I am weak when it comes to my children Serena, I would be the same with you. Do you doubt me?"

When she didn't answer and refused to stand her stare, Sansa had her answer. And her heart broke for her girl. She took her face in her hands gently.

“I grew you inside myself and you made me yours, Serena. The first kick and I knew I would die for you. Your little babble was my favourite sound. This body of mine, that has been through war, knows nothing better than to hold you. These hands will always be quick to pull you up and steady to keep you standing. No one will ever love you the same way I do. With this devotion. With this certainty. I am your most faithful servant my darling, though I am a Queen,” she assured her. “Still though, you are not my only child, you are the only one to have my blood, Serena. You are the safest. No matter if I'm dead or alive, you will always have my blood. Lord Robyn will always call his banners for you. Uncle Edmure will do the same. For Joanna it isn't so. They would only do it while I'm alive. That's why I have to be so more careful with her. Why there are so many more risks. Why my eyes are so keenly focused West. And I miss her. So very much I miss her and despair of not seeing her again. But that does not take from the love I bear you," she assured her.

Serena took a deep breath and made herself smile, like she was so prone to do. "I miss her too. She was so very lovely. And bright. She always helped me with my figures."

Sansa smiled. "She didn't get that from me, I assure you. When I was young I was terrible with them too. It takes a lot of practice and patient eyes."

"I can be patient too," she was quick to say.

"I have no doubt you can. You take that from me, and you’ll be no less than I," she promised her truthfully.

Serena nodded slowly and smiled softly, like she did so often.

"There as rumours about a marriage..."

Alyn Blackwood and Joanna had married a fortnight ago. He was a sweet lad; she had met him. Terrified of the Queen of the North, his bride’s mother, as he should, but brave. They had him knighted not long before the talks began, so he would marry her a knight. A good match. The Riverlands would stand with her because of it. Joanna spoke softly of him in her letters. Had not raised any issue about their marriage consummation, assured her all talks of the bedding had been thoroughly put to rest by both parties.

“…for me.”

Sansa nodded slowly. "Yes. Robar Royce. The second son of Lord Andar Royce. He is about your age, a bit older. A comely lad, tall with large shoulders. Before my Lord Royce died, he promised me he was the most similar to him in spirit, raised him himself so he would be the most suitable. It's why I chose him. Lord Royce was the most loyal man I knew, the first who saw me as a leader. And he raised a grandson that would respect and support that in you.” She sighed sadly, for she knew it was no small task to be betrothed to a stranger. “In truth he has been raised to be your husband, my darling. And I have met him at Harrenhall, he's charming and handsome. With light eyes," Sansa tried to describe him honestly in a hopeful light.

She gave a solemn nod and cleaned the tear that ran down her cheek quickly believing she wouldn't see it. It pained her mother more than anything she might have said. Her heart broke when her children cried.

Sansa had once been so excited to hear of her marriage in these same rooms, with her own mother. Had been eager to be wanted and appreciated by a Lord Husband, beautiful and comely and – _southern_. Sansa was always her mother’s daughter, more than she was ever the North’s, for the longest of times she had been _a trout born amongst the snow_ – Cersei had said once. She had been taught to serve and looked forward to doing her duty by marrying for her family. Like her mother had before her. She had grown under the shadow of her parents’ loving marriage, if not a loyal one. She hadn’t been raised to expect the heavy hand of her husband, sharp words or cruel insults. She had been raised to know that though she was a Stark of Winterfell she wouldn’t be so for long. Serena had not been raised the same. Neither had Joanna.

Her daughters had been raised under the knowledge of what had happened to their mother. They had grown noticing scars, tracing them with their fingers. They knew how dangerous a marriage bed could be. How one’s husband could be the most dangerous enemy. Sansa hadn’t raised them to be naïve. She hadn’t left them unprepared. They were knowledgeable and they were _frightened_. Joanna had hidden it better. Joanna hid everything better for hers was Cersei’s face and Serena had her own, she knew better how lies looked on her own face.

Sansa took her hands in hers and laced their fingers together. Serena had her Lady mother’s hands, the long delicate fingers, the small freckles on their back from the northern sun.

"I never lied to you, Serena, I always said that it had to be a political match like it was with Joanna. But I chose good men for you both. From houses that respect me or were loyal to me. Houses that would support you should anything come to me. Houses whose son’s hands I can break should they rise them against you. And be sure that I would break them. As liege Ladies you both require loyalty before any other thing. And love is built. Step by step. Stone by stone," she said, as her mother had once done.

Serena frowned, but keep her eyes on their hands. "You didn't have to. You didn't marry. You chose for love. And you kept the North's loyalty all the same. And many Northern Ladies took your lead and did the same," she tried to argue, though she could not face her.

Sansa took a deep breath and bit the hollow of her cheek.

"I loved your father. And he loved me. But he was anything but loyal to me, Serena. You know that. He only started to do his duty by me once he lost me. And the North? I gave the North their independence and things were done to me, unimaginable things that the North did not protect me from, they had little choice than to accept what I did, for shame of what they hadn't done. I was forcefully married two times before your father, betrothed to Joffrey before that as well. Men no one could protect me from, not that anyone tried. Don’t let that slip your mind when you speak of my lack of husband. Don’t let the lack of men after the wars as well, slip your memory."

"I’m sorry mother... I didn’t mean..."

Sansa shook her head and took her chin so she would look her in the eye. "I don't need you to be sorry, my dearest, I need you to understand that just because it was allowed of me, and of them, doesn't mean it would be allowed of any of you. I bled for my freedom. I would shield you from the same. From cruel men and unkind marriages. This is nothing of the sort. And should it ever turn so, I will end it myself. I swear that to you, by the old gods and the new, I do."

Serena nodded slowly.

"And it won't be for many years, my love," she promised her. "Joanna had to marry before you, she's the last lion. You need not do such thing. I am still healthy and you're far too young. He will come to ward here in a year perhaps. You will get to know him, and I will get to watch him. I will only give you away to someone gentle and loyal," she swore.

“Yes, mother,” she agreed, a smile easily creeping into her lips. “Joanna does enjoy Alyn’s company, she said so in her letters…”

“Do you suppose I would choose any lesser man for the heir to the North?” Sansa wondered, a smile on her lips.

“So he _is_ handsome?” she was quick to ask. Sansa laughed and nodded. “Lord Royce was ever so kind in your stories. Not many are…” she mused. “And he always brought me gifts when he visited, carried me around in his shoulders,” she pointed out in thought, giggling a little at the thought of the large man doing his best to humour her.

“Dear Lord Royce was very fond of you, and so very patient with the attention seeking child you were. Do you believe he would not offer you the best of his crop of grandchildren?” Sansa asked her to consider.

“No, I don’t think he would,” she said confidently.

"I'm here," she announced as she entered the dark room.

Barbrey scoffed. "You're lucky I'm not dead yet."

Sansa waved away her concerns. "Nonsense, I haven't given you permission to die Lady Dustin and you must always follow your Queen's orders."

The old woman shushed the maids away.

"How was she?" she asked softly. Barbrey too cared for her cub.

Joanna had been seven moons along with child when Sansa had taken the most brilliant pupils at the Maidenfort and the women alive who had delivered her sister and rode night and day for Casterly Rock. Her subjects would call her sentimental for it – for wanting to be with her daughter as she gave birth for the first time. For wanting to be a comfort to her, as she cried and screamed to bring along Lannister heirs onto the world.

She remembered so clearly the hollow side of her bed stand where her mother should have been during Serena’s birth. The cold loss of a mother that was so viscerally noted, when one fought to turn from daughter to mother. She didn’t wish for Joanna to ever know the feeling. And her babe was still so young, not ten and nine yet, a birthing bed could so often be a bloody battle. One which Sansa would have never left her unarmed for. She had promised, she had sworn. The best midwives of the Realm and her mother, everything Joanna deserved. Her babe had been so happy when she had seen her, wobbly running to her when they were hidden by stone walls from curious stares, as the Lady of the Rock knew peace in her mother’s arms. Nothing terrible could happen while the Queen in the North was there. Sansa would not allow it.

"She made giving birth a dignified affair, such was her grace." Barbrey gave a hollow laugh. "Beautiful babes they were. Just like her when she was born. Pink and quiet and already beautiful lions, looked nothing like their father, but the Lannister blood is strong. It was to be expected. I confess I cried a little as I held them," Sansa confessed to her rather bashfully.

Barbrey chuckled. "What did she name them?"

"Lelia and Gerold. For all the stories I told her when she was a girl. Good Lannister names."

Sansa had taken cold rags to her skin after the birth and held the babes as Joanna slept for a bit, comforted by the safety only a mother could provide. Alyn Blackwood had cried when he first held his children. Refused to take them both at once for fear of dropping them. Cooed them gently and made heartfelt promises to always keep them safe. Offered Joanna gold and emerald jewels in commemoration for their children’s birth.

He had fretted over his wife, over the pillows and the blankets, over the food and the Lords that demanded to see the babes. He had looked at Joanna with such wonder, such adoration, when he had seen her with both children at her breast, still flushed and tired from the birth. It had been terribly romantic to behold, a husband’s love for his wife. It had eased Sansa’s mind.

"You taught her well. She'll always make you proud, that much is true. But tell me, is your heart rested now? Can you breathe with the loss of her, are you done grieving?"

Sansa swallowed harshly. "I feel as if I could die from missing her alone. Every letter that comes to me from the West or the Riverlands makes my heart quicken with worry and I'm afraid that will never cease. He loves her, I can see it, but… she is the mother of his children now. Not only his Lady. That can bring unwanted thoughts."

“You are feared in the West. You are the tale mothers tell their daughters to never mistake a kind girl for a pawn. The warning fathers give sons to beware of a silent wife, for she can kill you quicker than a brash one. You are a witch and skin changer. A Queen of Ice, unmoved, unfazed, unbending. You are the Stranger to them, as much as you are the Mother. That will always protect Joanna. Your revenge is a cause for concern. Your mother’s heart is a cause for concern. As long as you live an attack on her is an offense to the North and whatever realms are loyal to it. She is safe," she assured her.

"Queens die and fear dissipates with time."

"Is Joanna not your daughter? Does she not have Cersei Lannister's blood? Does she not bear her mother's scars on her heart? Does she not know every single thing that happened to you? Have you kept her blind to how to plan and act and rule, without you by her side to guide her?"

“I taught her everything I know. Told her everything I endured. I trained and prepared her and made her steel, though I shielded her from all the blows that made me so.”

“Today it is your revenge that is cause for concern. One day, long years from now, it will be hers. For she is her mother’s daughter, and not a soul on these Seven Realms would dare disagree. The West prospers under her rule, her people are fed and in wonder of their new Lion. She was the Maiden reborn, just like you were once, now she will become the Mother. She has given two healthy heirs, their father’s children, she has secured her seat and she is not even twenty. Rest now, my child. Look North now, for I will be gone soon enough,” she advised her.

“The Maiden. The Mother. Is that what rulers are supposed to be? Gods? Is that what I became?” she wondered absentmindedly, remembering Cersei’s words. “Daenerys Targaryen saw herself as a God. If I became such as the likes of her, then I have failed at being the Queen I had hoped to be.”

Barbrey frowned. “The people need symbols. When the winters are hard. When the cold is too much and their belies growl, they need to be able to look upon someone and rest their hopes there. That is what you have given them. You have made yourself someone they can depend upon. Not just someone they can believe in,” she told her. “And you provide. Something Daenerys Targaryen never knew the meaning of. She saw herself as a God before anyone else. You don’t. They call you Mother and you see your faults still, after all these prosperous years. You are not delusional. You have never been. You have served, more than you have ever asked for service. That makes you very much unlike the Gods, does it not? And the likes of _Daenerys Targaryen_ ,” she spited her name.

Sansa clenched her jaw, sighed and readied herself for what she was about to say. “I suppose I should amend myself now, then.”

Barbrey frowned but Sansa continued, “I saw you as an enemy for the longest of times. Made you my Hand because of it. My biggest threat close and under my watch. I bound you to my crown, to my reign. It’s the player in me, you see…”

Barbrey raised her hand to cease her from speaking further.

“And I was, Sansa,” she confessed easily enough. “You did well to think it and acted wisely to keep me near. I was not found of the Starks. Might I ask you when you began to see me as something more? If ever.”

“Before I delivered Serena. The way you acted. The comfort you provided. I trusted you then, a leap of faith if you will,” she tried to explain.

Barbrey chuckled without strength. "You sweet girl. Such a tender heart, Sansa,” she commented in the strange way of hers, drily yet meaningful. “Nothing like me. Hate kept me standing for years. But not you. Always love, always hope. Took the child of your enemy and loved her more than yourself… I suppose that was when I stopped being your enemy.” She tilted her head to the side. “But I only truly became your Hand when I found you a Stark who didn’t speak of honour and instead lived by duty. I knew then I could stand behind a Stark that didn’t demand more than what he offered. That wouldn’t ask for sacrifices they weren’t willing to make themselves. A Stark that wouldn’t bring his sister’s bones home and let the bannerman’s who had fought for her _there_ – rotting on the bloody sands of Dorne, on the silky rocks of the Trident. When you swelled with a traitor’s seed yet didn’t forgive the crimes which you wouldn’t forgive a subject for – I knew you were a worthy Queen then. Someone who had earned loyalty, who knew how to repay it. I have never regretted it. I hope you haven’t as well.”

Sansa smiled. “I have not, Lady Dustin. You have been unfailing, the most competent Hand I could have asked for,” she assured her.

Lady Dustin scoffed. “You have a kind heart girl.”

Sansa chuckled. “Many would call it immensely cold.”

“As you need to be. I said a kind heart, I did not say a soft one. As any Queen should be, you were made to last, you have endured and kept your heart. You are a Queen of the most memorable kind, I trust. It is in your marrow; it is in your bones. It has been built into you. Beaten into you. Raised forth by you. Songs will be written about you, Sansa Stark. Tales of wonder and solitude. The unrelenting strength of Northern women. You have brought pride to us all. Thank you for allowing me to serve you. It has been the honour of my life, child. I trust that I will look up from one of the Seven Hells and see a many good thing you are still yet to do.”

Sansa smiled, took the other woman’s hand. “Thank you for your loyalty and service, my Lady. You have honoured me.”

_"You're a mother now. Swear to me again," she asked of her and if her voice shook when she called her that, Sansa pretended not to hear it._

_"I'll take your child with me North." She will be safe. But she could not promise that. "She will be cared for," she told her instead._

_Cersei nodded and swallowed drily. Still squatted on the floor. Leaning against the wall, midwives all around her concerned with the after birth, but Cersei kept her eyes firmly on her._

_"She could be your daughter. She looks..." she tried to convince her, her voice was so tired Sansa could feel her exhaustion._

_Sansa shook her head. "There's no need. She will be loved regardless," she said and found that the words didn't sound like a lie._

_Cersei nodded slowly. "To be a mother is to spill blood. To kill and die for your children. Your mother would agree, I believe. I... I confess, I... Have refused to die for them, before. Tommen... He..." she shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. I'll die for this one," she told her, with certainty in her voice and she noticed how none of the midwives dared refute her, only exchanging looks._

_"I never betrayed you," Sansa said, surprising even herself with her words. "Never. Not as a girl and not..." she could not say it._

_"I... I know," she said, trembling with what Sansa was sure the midwives would soon tell her was birthing fever. "That's why I know, that when your own children come, you'll be no less to mine. You'll be a good mother. Better than me. Do you swear?" she kept asking again and again, tried to will it into the truth, as the midwives took her by the arms to take her to the bed._

_With the silent child on her arms, eyes that would soon turn green silently on her, Sansa found that she could do little more than nod._

“ _Maron_ ,” she acknowledged from her place at the high table, her vivid memories of bloody rooms leaving her at once.

It was a warm day and she had decided to change from her solar to the Great Hall. It was much better to entertain guests as well.

“You summoned me, Your Grace,” he mumbled, impertinently, from the place where Petyr’s throat had been slashed.

Maron Greyjoy was much like what Sansa remembered the Theon from her youth had been. Handsome and lean. Cocky and arrogant. Yet while Theon’s arrogance had served to hide his insecurities, Maron’s served no such point. He was Yara’s second born son. Theon Greyjoy, her first born would be her heir. Once Joanna prepared to leave for Casterly Rock, Sansa had accepted when Yara asked for her son to foster with her. He was close to Serena’s age and in Theon’s memory, Sansa had agreed. It had been foolish of her, to think anyone could have come close to what Theon had been.

Sansa knew Yara had some interesting ideas of what place Maron could enjoy in Sansa’s court. The Iron Islands having supported the Dragon Queen in her conquest of Westeros were even more despised than they had been in earlier years and the North was no exception to this. Ironborn were hated far and wide. Still, her people struggled with the restrictions imposed upon them by King Brandon. Yara had banned Salt wives and other disgusting practices of the sort – the _old way_ , they called it – so Sansa had been kind. Took her son and showed her some favour. It wouldn’t last much longer.

“Indeed I did.” She put her quill down and leaned back on her chair. “Tell me, Maron, what position do you hope to entertain in my daughter’s court?”

“Well, I would be a good advisor to the-”

Sansa frowned. “Advisor? I believed you sought to be her husband. That was why you challenged Robar in the training yard today, was it not? Why you drew sword to an unarmed man in _my_ halls,” she wondered.

Serena and Maron had become somewhat close. Maron made sure of it. He followed her about, gave her flowers and trinkets. He was ever so charming and ever so amusing. At some point he even went around with a lute playing little songs for her, about her beauty, her eyes and her copper curls. She indulged him, of course, she was a girl and she liked pretty things. She liked to be courted and appreciated for her looks like every young maiden. Yet, just like Sansa, she was just as aware of how he fucked young maids on the back of the stables, just like his uncle had once done. Serena was young, but in no way was she stupid. In no way, was a daughter of Sansa Stark, naïve.

Yet, when Robar had arrived, at ten and seven, to foster with Sansa, in preparation for the upcoming drafting of the marriage alliance between the Starks and the Royces, things took a downward turn. At some point Maron had convinced himself that if only Serena was enamoured by him, she would push for the marriage to be overturned and she would marry him instead, making him the King of the North. Sansa assumed his mother had supported the plan as well. Pitiful.

Serena would no such thing. She was her mother’s daughter. She knew her duty and most of all, though she enjoyed Maron and didn’t turn him away, she knew him. She wouldn’t turn away from her duty for a man whose affections were fickle. Sansa trusted her daughter and her instincts and in truth, she too had wanted to see how she would react. Serena had turned cold and dismissive in a perfect image of Sansa herself. She turned him away when he requested a private audience, stared down his attempts to break into song, showed particular favour to the young girls he had bedded and turned from, making it painfully obvious how she bore them no jealousy.

Maron, faced with her lack of reaction, in turn placed his hopes onto Robar. Robar reminded her of her dear Lord Royce, he reminded her of her father as well, the good parts. The serene presence, the calm storm, the steady confidence in his step. He was no heartbreaker like Maron, with a sweet thing on the tip of his tongue for any maiden, or a cruel jape for any opponent. He was handsome in truth, much more than Maron, whose confidence was his weapon, he had a strong jaw and light eyes, as tall as his grandfather and just as silent. Silence was not the way to conquer young ladies, everyone knew. But it was good quality in consorts, an excellent one in husbands.

Maron chuckled lightly, in that easy way of his. “We cannot deny I would be a much proper husband than that Royce could ever be. A proper King-”

Sansa laughed then. Harder than she would need to, if she need not embarrass him. “A proper King? My daughter has no need of a proper King, for she will be a proper Queen. She needs a consort. And you have none of the skills required to be so. Where is your loyalty? Your temperance? Would you be steadfast in your companionship? Would you know your place? For it would always be silently behind her. Not beside her, much less in front of her, your poor child.”

The boy sneered and held in chin high in challenge. “I did it to protect her honour.”

Sansa clenched her jaw and crossed her hands on the table. She knew her daughter. She trusted her daughter. Her daughter would never give herself away to some childish boy.

“You shouldn’t lie Maron. It is very dangerous to lie to a Queen. On her own halls no less,” she advised gravely.

“It doesn’t matter, does it? If I say it is so, then she would be soiled. The Royce’s would retract their offer and you would have no choice but to marry her to me. Who would marry another man’s spoils?” the boy snorted, and Sansa wondered how this could be the child of Yara Greyjoy, his mother had married no man and still he behaved as if he had never met a woman worth respecting his whole life.

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter.” He smiled. “My daughter placed herself in front of Robar when you challenged him, didn’t she? She clearly showed her favour towards him for all to see and whisper about. _That’s quite enough Greyjoy_ , it’s what she said, wasn’t it? Kept to his side afterwards, as any loving bride would.” Sansa smiled in a vicious way she had learned from her golden tutor.

Robar wouldn’t have fought either way – it had surprised her in truth, when it was later reported to her – the brave way in which he had laughed the Ironborn down and “ _refused to kill children_ ”. Lord Royce wouldn’t lower himself to amuse someone as shameful as Maron Greyjoy, it was a comfort to Sansa to know his pride wasn’t easily bruised, that he didn’t rise for cheap plays. Yet Serena had known what to do then. She had placed herself with her soon to be husband, like her grandmother had done once, with Brandon Stark. She had shown her favour and left no place for doubts. She had acted accordingly, and she had acted wisely.

“I can make whispers of my own,” he challenged her further.

Sansa showed her teeth in a way that could not be confused with a smile. “Can you now? I am Queen, the truth is whatever _I_ say it is. And you are but a Greyjoy child. Unprotected. Unsupported. Alone. Did you know you stand in the place where I killed the man you are trying to emulate just now?” Sansa looked to the ground he was stepping on. “Just there I sentenced Petyr Baelish to die, him too liked his whispers, him too tried to challenge Brandon Stark for a Tully’s hand. Him too regretted challenging me.”

His hand twitched but there was no sword for him to grab, so he answered her the best he could, “I do not concern myself with dead men.”

“You should. The dead can teach us so much. What not to do most of all.” Sansa shrugged absentmindedly. “You challenged my guest, on my grounds, without my permission. Your Queen’s permission, since you are my ward. I am to punish you however I see fit,” she reminded him.

“I will ruin Serena’s reputation,” he tried to threaten her in a last effort though his voice shook. “I’ll make everyone know she’s nothing more than _another_ _Stark whore_.”

They had called her such before, stupid men, who thought their words wouldn’t reach her, none ever had the bravery of calling her such in front of her, but it was no great offense. She would have sent him home to his mother, like the insolent child he was. The wasteland that was the island of Pyke. She would have been merciful, and she would have been kind had he asked for forgiveness for his foolishness at challenging Lord Royce. But Serena… he shouldn’t have mentioned her. He had threatened her daughter. That would not do. Not at all.

Sansa gave a barely imperceptible nod and Arya from the shadows moved like a cat behind him and kicked his head forward. His face crashing against the stone floors, his nose breaking upon impact. Sansa shrugged; noses healed. It was more important that he was reminded of who she was. Of who the Starks were.

Sansa rolled her eyes and continued with her other plans, “You will be joyous to know I have arranged a marriage for you Maron, with a great lady. A good marriage. Any second son of a small frack of land would be overwhelmed with pride. I will send word to your mother. She will agree, of course.” It wasn’t truly a choice. “You are _soiled_. Isn't that the world you used? Your frolicking is well known, your temperament… You're not a good candidate for a husband to any great lady, but the Lady Manderly was kind enough to accept to take you on, as her second husband."

"What?! " he sputtered from the ground, after a few moments, blood still running from his nose. “She's twice my age!”

Sansa frowned, feigning confusion. "Age has never stood between any woman and her husband to be. Of course you know she has children to spare, so you need not give her an heir, their own children are on their way. It is only for you to keep your honour, you see. As your wardeness I must arrange for your marriage, and who would have you after all the trouble you caused?” She smirked; a dangerous smirk that only served to prepare him for what she would say next. “In truth, this marriage serves for you to keep your life. I cannot let you go and to kill you would at most be bothersome. I will keep you for a time, confined. Teach you how to conduct yourself since you lack the skills and then Wynafryd will take you on and keep you _safe_."

He snorted. "I am a hostage then."

"You were my ward, who I treated with every kindness and respect. You chose to challenge me and make yourself thus. Now you must live with your choices. Lady Manderly is a good woman, who has raised many good and loyal sons before. She will teach you right from wrong, child. "

“I am the son of the Lady of the Iron Islands. You cannot do this,” he seethed, even though he grimaced at his own words.

Sansa tilted her head to the side as she heard her guards making their way to the Great Hall and exchanged looks with Arya. “I’m the Queen in the North, your wardeness, why ever couldn’t I?”

“Once my mother hears of this, you will regret it. You will rue the day when you could have had me at your side yet decided to make an enemy of me,” he recited, as if something he had learned from a book of stories, as if he had memorised his lines for her in an effort to sound threatening. He was a child still. He would learn. Sansa would make a point of it. Her letter to his mother might be delayed for a while. So often correspondence was lost on Northern Winds.

“You would challenge me? Your mother?” Sansa grinned sharply, so very amused. “Please, do try child. My men are long overdue for a little fighting, it will do well for their spirits. Many Northern men have been itching for an excuse to kill Ironborn for what happened all those years ago. The killing of kin isn’t easily forgotten in the North, you see. And we must put our new armadas to use. Against your pitiful little boats, it will be good sport,” she assured him with an easy smile, as her men surrounded him, themselves eager to put him in his place.

“You are not that powerful Sansa Stark, nor so beloved that a war against the Iron Islands wouldn’t harm you,” he assured her, dried blood on his face.

Yara Greyjoy too had suffered punishment, the same as Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. The amount of ships King Brandon allowed them to have was meagre and only covered necessary travels, and the ships themselves were small and unable to fight against strong winds. Useless for any reaping and pillaging. It was well known the Unsullied had died from the butterfly fever not long after they reached Naath. The number of Dothraki alive after the Battle for the Dawn never a true concern.

Even if this boy wanted to fight her, he would find no allies to do so. She had good relations with her brother’s kingdom and with Dorne. Neither he nor Yara would find support there. It was true, she was not beloved by all, but even the enemies she might possess hated Yara Greyjoy far more than they hated her. A last gift, from the Dragon Queen.

“In the silver days of their might, perhaps. But now?” She chuckled. “The Ironborn were never liked, but your mother’s regretful support of the Dragon Queen only made you more hated across the realms. Still, I was merciful. I took in her wayward son, for you reminded me of Theon in his youth. I took in a hated woman’s son, so that with my favour they might open trade with your mother. It seems all of my mercy was put to the ground once you aimed too high and too recklessly. Aren’t you ashamed of how your people will starve again should I decide to show my disfavour in the face of your threats? Should the Vale, the Riverlands, the West, follow my lead”

“The other Realms-”

“Would say that finally justice was being served for your mother’s aid in bringing a Targaryen onto the Realm. That her punish then was too light and the North rectified it,” Sansa mused.

“They will say you are power-mad.”

“They will say I was the only one with the army and ships to do so and will be grateful that I have put Iron born in their place. You are a child, Maron. For what you do now, once your uncle lost his cock and fingers for. Your mother didn’t rescue him. Do you believe me capable of less? And if I did, who would rescue you?”

She didn’t mean it. Not truly. She could, but she wouldn’t. She was neither cruel nor mad, but he did not know that. And if there was anything Sansa Stark could do well, was play.

He took a step back, his mouth agape and clashed against the chest of one of her men, who pushed him forward. He looked up and spoke though his chin wobbled, “I am a man and-”

Arya snorted. “You are a prideful little boy. Who would do well to remember the fate of Greyjoy’s in these halls,” she said in a threatening tone from behind him. She had never forgiven Theon. She had not suffered with him, like Sansa had, but in the end she had respected the way he had given his life to save Bran. “Were you not taught of what happened to your uncle? Were you not taught of the cruelty that went on in these halls? Were you not taught of the man my sister destroyed and that your mother feared too much to free your uncle from?” she asked. “It seems you mother failed in educating you. Failed to teach whose hospitality you’d take.”

“Grown men know better than to challenge me. Know better than to challenge Stark wolves in their own halls. Know better of what I am able to do for the North and my family. What my sister is able to do for her family. So tell me Maron Greyjoy are you a child or are you a man? And how would you like this to go?” she wondered with a vicious smile.

She had Serena waiting behind the doors of the Great Hall. So the people would see how Serena Stark neither shook nor cried as the Greyjoy lad was _silently_ taken to the cells from drawing sword against his wardeness guest. The face of the North was unbothered. They would comment that the granddaughter of Lady Catelyn Tully had her misfortune of attracting unwanted suitors. That is what they would say.

It was not a usual punishment some might say. Petyr had only been sent away by Lord Hoster, yet many had considered he wouldn’t have been able to survive his injuries from the duel, who could have told what Lord Tully might have done had things gone this way. And truly, Maron had more than challenged him for a duel. He had challenged his honour, he had baited Robar and raised sword far before Robar had any sword in hand. Her own father might have chosen to give him a lashing, in her place. Then again, her wolf was killed for less.

Cersei would have killed Maron. She knew this with as much certainty as she heard her own heartbeat. _Root and stem_ , she would have destroyed him for threatening her children, for challenging her. To be a mother was to be willing to spill blood. And Sansa was - _willing_. She could have killed him. She had considered it for longer that she liked to admit when he had threatened Serena. She still was. His life depended upon his behaviour from then forth. How he behaved in her cells and how he behaved in White Harbour would decide if he was to die in his sleep. Petyr had taught her much of poison.

"He will remain there until he begs for forgiveness, " she informed her, as Serena placed herself at her side once the hall was cleared, slipping her arm in hers as they walked to her solar.

"And if he does not?" Serena asked mindfully.

"He's little more than a child. A dangerous one surely, for he is brave. But a child nonetheless."

"And when he begs forgiveness?" she wondered.

"Wylla has written to her sister, she will do us the favour of marrying him. The threat of him subdued when he becomes a Manderly. Her children are grown and unthreatened by him. She has a firm grasp; she will teach him to behave like a proper lord consort. Once Wyna dies, you'll have to keep an eye on him of course," she advised. 

"Have I ruined the marriage alliance with Robar? I kept to him mother, I did. I turned away from Maron and have refused to see him ever since the challenge. Loud and clear, for everyone to hear and whisper about. I have never showed him favour or allowed any suspicious touch," she assured her, her tone anxious as she let go of her arm to look attentively at her once they entered her chambers.

Sansa nodded. "I have no doubt, my darling. Still, you must show your favour to Robar now." She narrowed her eyes, concern creeping up her spine. "Do you lack it? Has he ever been unkind or - "

Serena shook her head vehemently. "No. Never unkind. He is distant. And composed."

Sansa smirked. "So are you, to those you do not know. So am I. One of you will have to grow near the other. You are the Crown Princess. The first step is yours, I believe."

"I suppose that is true." She sighed. "I think... Some silly part of me, I'm sure. For a moment alone I wanted him to fight for me. Like Lord Brandon did for grandmother. It's silly I know." She looked away from her, her cheeks reddening.

"You might consider that he himself feared to fight the man you loved and didn't want to upset you," Sansa offered with a shrug.

Serena raised a brow and looked at her carefully. "He has spoken to you then. He has brought his love affairs to the Queen in the North. How _brave_ of him," she pointed out with an amused smile.

Robar had come to her as soon as Wylla had made reports of what had happened in the courtyard. Had bowed and assured her that if Serena wished to break the betrothal, the Royces would continue to be the North’s greatest allies. He simply did not wish to stand in the way of her happiness if she preferred the Greyjoy Lord, even if he had grimaced when he said his name.

Sansa had assured him nothing of the sort would succeed. If she hadn’t been convinced in his suitability to be her husband before, his actions had surely made it clear there was no better man to stand by Serena.

Sansa laughed. "How brave indeed. "

"Do you like him, Mother?" Serena asked carefully observing her face, for any signs of lies, just like she taught her.

"That is inconsequential, I believe. It is your heart which hangs in the balance. But yes, I find him to be a likable young man," she told her, easily enough.

"Does he remind you of Jon Snow?" she wondered, rather forwardly than how she usually went about, her little girl. "They say he is morose like he was. And quiet…"

"Oh dear... Well, no. He was quite protective, he might have fought Maron. The Gods know he was itching to fight Petyr Baelish while he walked these halls. And Theon once told me Jon only kept him alive for having helped me escape to Bolton Bastard. He was impulsive, which Robar isn’t in the slightest. Robar reminds me of Lord Royce, and he reminds me of my own father. They were good husbands. The both of them. Quiet men, but steady ones. Constant in their affections."

Serena frowned and was quick to argue, "Eddard Stark recognized a bastard and made his wife raise him in her own halls. It was certainly a great offense to his Lady wife."

Sansa smiled at her eagerness to defend her grandmother. "Do you believe Robar capable of such disrespect?"

She held her chin high. "I am your daughter. The Crown Princess of the North. He would never be able to force me thus.” She tilted her head to the side and an appreciative smile played on her lips. “However, _no_. I do not think he has it in him for such disloyalty, even if he could."

"It appears to me, my darling, that you respect him," she pointed out.

Serena nodded. "I do. Of course I do." She beamed for a moment, like she was prone to do, her joyful daughter. The smile that made everyone who saw her want to smile back. She so easily filled a room with her happiness, warmed every hall. _The Sun of Winter_ , they called her rightfully so, ever since she had grown into a woman. What had once been the words of House Karstark were now what the smallfolk and visiting lords had taken to calling their princess. Sansa would have though it a greater honour than the dead house deserved, hadn’t Alys died protecting Bran.

She looked down in an effort to hide the blush of her cheeks. “He brings me flowers, sometimes. Blue roses he leaves my maids to fill my chambers. Never speaks of it, but I once made a crown of them and I never saw him smile so much. That is rather romantic, isn’t it?” she asked her, as if hoping for her approval.

“It truly is, my dear. Like in a song,” she said, not that she believed in them any longer, but she knew how much Serena treasured them. The same way she and Bran had, in their youth.

Serena nodded slowly, a smile still playing on her lips. She eyed her for a moment.

"Do you love father still?" The question took Sansa by surprise. “The same way you love Lord Brax?"

Joanna had always been more fond of Lord Brax than Serena had ever been. Perhaps in her youth she had shared notions of a doomed love shared between Sansa and her father, as soon as she was old enough to learn of it. Those illusions didn’t last long, shattered as she grew and began her lessons in history.

"Who says I love Lord Brax?"

Serena rolled her eyes. "You take his counsel. You trust him. Isn't that love? At least for you, mother? That is the most clear confession of your love, I believe," she said very gently, taking her hands to her heart.

Sansa had to smile at her words for they reminded her of what Jon had once said, all those years ago at the Wall, the last time she ever saw him.

"I am very fond of Lord Brax. Very fond indeed. But I've found that ever since I became a mother I define love in a different way. Your father once told me that duty was the death of my love. And he was right. Back then, truly was he right. But then, I... When I left Joanna in Casterly Rock, when I saw Maron in there... I have my duty to the North, and I have my duty to you both, my daughters. And I would sacrifice my duty to the North, let it be damned for the both of you. So you would never have to suffer like I once did. So in truth, duty is not the death of my love for my children. And I don’t think anything less than that can be love," she told her softly, earnestly. To be a mother was to kill and die for one’s children, Cersei had been painfully right then.

Serena beamed and took her hands and placed them on her face, like she did when she was a girl. Treasuring the feeling of her mother’s cool hands on her warm face. "You never sounded less like a queen as you do right this moment."

Sansa smiled but raised a brow. "What do I sound like then?"

"You sound like _my_ mother," she said proudly.

"Are she and I different, my love?"

Serena shook her head vehemently. "Not at all. But I suppose usually you are the mother to us all. The North and to Jo and me. It is lovely to know we have something of yours all to ourselves," she confessed, her smile this time shy, but nevertheless there.

It was Sansa's turn to beam.

"Yet you still haven't answered. Do you?" she prodded further.

"No. He is my family. That same way Bran is. Distantly and in memory. And I will always love him, for he gave you to me, but I am not _in_ love with him. Haven’t been for the longest of times. Do you fault me for it?" she asked, her jaw clenched in anticipation.

“Why would I fault you for not nursing a broken heart? I want only your happiness, mother. Are you happy, truly happy?” Her smile was gone, and she had a concerned look on her face that warmed her heart.

“How can I not be, when I have you and Jo?” Sansa Stark was quick to tell her little girl.

Argella took the room in a storm and kneeled at her feet.

"Sweetling, what's wrong?" Sansa asked surprised, hurriedly taking her by the hands so she would rise.

" _Your Grace_ -" Sansa furrowed, never had Argella been required to call her such, unless foreign dignitaries were visiting the North "- I would humbly request that in your grace and wisdom you would allow me to, as my Lady mother did before me, visit the lands along the Sunset Sea."

" _Oh._ I see. And what has your mother said about the subject?" Sansa wondered, slightly amused.

"Mother said she would only allow it should her sister the Queen do," she explained.

Sansa almost laughed. Arya expected her to control her daughter better than herself could. Gendry would always indulge his daughter, convinced she was just like her mother – and she was – able to do everything she set her mind to. It fell to Arya to discipline her wilful daughter and she was always eager to pull Sansa in with her to help with the great task.

She sighed. "Those are dangerous travels, sweetling. I could perhaps dispense a crew if you were to stop at some ports and establish friendly relationships with some important merchants, yet _still_ it is a dangerous travel and for one so young..."

"Mother was younger-"

"Your Lady mother was a trained assassin," Sansa pointed out.

Argella deflated for a bit, but the spark of will remained on her eyes.

"I will serve my cousin for the rest of my life. I will be her advisor and companion for as long as she requires it. Her castellan one day, and her Hand should the honour befall me. Yet how can I do such a thing when I know nothing of the world, my dear Aunt?" she argued skilfully.

Sansa sighed and massaged the spot between her brows creased with the tension created from defying one’s sovereign. Yet she could not argue against such well-crafted points and find herself on the losing side. There was bravery to Argella Stark and much will, just like her mother. A storm brewing one found hard to fight against, even a Queen.

"What about young Lord Flint? You two are rather fond of one another. I thought you were considering his proposal of marriage," Sansa pointed out, running out of arguments.

Argella nodded. "He promised he would wait until I return."

Sansa’s smile tightened. "It isn't always so. And should his Lady mother die while you travel he might be pressured to make a marriage alliance right away, sweetling," she tried to explain, not unkindly.

Argella kept the determined look about her. "If he is unable to wait for a year or two, then he wasn't worth giving my hand to."

Sansa chuckled. "You're far too much like your mother, niece. Very well, I will allow it. Ask for your mother and father's permission and should they allow it as well, you will give me a few moons to prepare the trip and let some merchant lords know of your visit. You will also speak with Lady Wynafryd and ask for her advice, she still has connections with her late husband’s family and will point your way better. Do you understand?"

Her smile was full and bright as she let go of her courtesies and leaped into her arms as she did when she was a girl. "Yes! Thank you Aunt Sansa!"

"Serena, my love. The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch has grown sick.” She refused to say his name. Refused to call him brother. Cousin. Lover or Father. Could not force herself to do so. “Myself and your aunt are going to the Wall to see him. Make sure he is not alone in his -” forced herself to spit out the words “- _final moments,_ to offer our gratitude for his years of service." She felt Gendry’s grimace behind her and Arya's steady eyes on her. "Would you-"

Serena shook her head gently. "I cannot mother. You must forgive me, but I cannot."

Sansa nodded in the slow way of hers, she had perfected over the years. The hollow one she gave when there were no words to give. "I understand, my darling. You are far along with child, he will understand as well," Sansa assured her in a sweet motherly tone.

Serena took her hand to her swollen bump, mindful of the words she would say, careful of the inflexions of her tone, just as she had taught her. Her queenly voice.

"I must protect this child, yes, but I ... I promised Joanna we would always be the same. All those years ago, before she left to Casterly Rock, we went to the heart tree and swore we would never stray from one another. Never let others stand between us, never allow husbands or countries turn us away from one another. That we would be your children alone, sisters by oaths and affection. Sister Queens, even if she isn't so, though she is _everything_ one should be, golden Jo.” She smiled at the recollection, but just as soon it was gone from her face. "Were I to know Jon Snow, when she has never known Jaime Lannister, would be a betrayal I cannot allow on my conscience, a betrayal I will not force my beloved sister to endure. We are fatherless, Joanna and I. Daughters of Sansa Stark and the North, that is what we are and take pride from. I cannot let her be alone in this. I cannot let myself be any man's child, for Joanna will never have a sire, so I shan't either. I am a loyal sister. You have bided me so, mother," she said softly, trying to make her understand, trying to make herself someone Sansa could be proud of, as if she wasn’t already.

Sansa had no words to say. Only pride spilling from the tips of her fingers while she took Serena soft cheeks in her hands when words weren't enough to express her affection for her little wolf.

“Won’t you regret it? Not knowing your father. Are you sure?” Sansa made herself ask, in concern for years that would come.

Serena shook her head and placed her hands atop her own that cradled her face. “You have been mother and father, and everything a child might need and be fortunate enough to have. I need to be a sister to Jo more than I will ever need to be a daughter to Jon Snow. Ask his forgiveness from me, for it is not fair that I hold a sister above a father, but she is half of me, and he is stranger. And he is a stranger for good reason, if you would forgive me saying so, mother, aunt,” she addressed her sister behind her.

Sansa gave her a tight smile. Unsure.

" _Two halves of the same coin_. Starks of Winterfell, the both of you," Arya said. Her chest swollen with pride as well, memories exchanged between both sisters. "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell either way. It is right that you should stay, my niece," she advised, since Argella was still at sea.

Sansa nodded. “You are Princess Regent while I am gone Serena. I have no doubt you will excel at it, my love,” she said confidently.

Serena smiled. “Thank you mother.”

Sansa nodded slowly and turned to her sister, once her child and Gendry left the room for them to make the arrangements.

"Have I failed him, Arya?" she asked her mindfully.

She frowned. "How so?"

"Serena, she... I never wanted her to hate him. Never wanted her to think badly of him. I fear that perhaps in my effort to have them be sisters, I treated Jon the same as I did Jaime Lannister," she mused.

Arya raised a brow. "They have much in common. Both Kingslayers. Both sister-fuc-"

"Arya!"

The younger one rolled her eyes. "Your influence isn't so great that his name isn't spoken unkindly in front of her. The North bears little goodwill towards him, we all know that, we can admit to it, can we not? He is one of their own, but still, he isn't loved. People acknowledge the Commander he was in the Long Night, but he gave up the North, he followed _her._ He followed a Targaryen when he should have followed a Stark. The North remembers. And even if the _Turncloak Wolf_ isn't sung in our walls doesn't mean that it isn't in others. It is not your fault he isn't loved. Robb is much the same. They might call him the Young Wolf, but he made stupid mistakes and he shall forever be called a fool for the Westerling girl. You can't unmake legacies. You are not that powerful, sister. You can't erase truths, though they are muddy and more grey that the people tell them as. Those are stories only those of us who were there will ever know. "

"I know it is not my fault, but perhaps I might have shared kinder stories of him than she heard around Winterfell’s halls. Perhaps, I should have given her better stories to know her father by. Not for duty, but for kindness," she settled.

Arya scoffed. "And which ones might that be? Your childhood and his were separated, but I'm sure you found some pretty titbits to tell her. I'm sure you told her of his bravery, his skill with the sword. His good intentions, for he was full of them, we know. I myself spoke to the children of the adventures from our childhood, the ones Jon and I shared. How he was my favourite brother, the person I loved above all else. But it isn't the child Jon was that will erase the man he became. She won't hear our stories and think – what a _poor_ boy – his betrayals, his mistakes, are less sharp now. She hears his name and she remembers how he had to be convinced to fight for her mother, for her uncle. She hears his name and she understands that he accepted a crown that was yours. She hears his name and thinks of dragons. And perhaps, she might remember some of our stories, of how he made for a charming knight in our plays, how he wanted to be one so much. How or a time he looked like the Warrior personified. But then she remembers how he failed and _why_ he failed. And as the child of Sansa Stark, as the heir to the North, she cannot have sympathy for him when it is her duty to feel it more keenly towards her people.”

Sansa couldn’t help but smile a little then. “I did raise her well, didn’t I? Not a drop of Targaryen in her,” she prided herself. “A true northern trout she is.”

“Not a drop,” Arya agreed. “No sympathetic stories of his adventures could have prevented her from feeling as she does. He fought for the Night’s Watch. He helped the Free Folk. He was instrumental in defeating the Night King. He was brave and he is strong. And in the end he accepted his faults honourably, though it took _a while_. She knows all of that. You told her that. You did not fail him. And you were certainly not unkind, neither of _us_ was," she spoke clearly and evenly but tears ran down her face and Sansa's hands shook by witnessing her like that. "We loved him. You loved him until he broke your heart and made you choose between your people and him. And you choose your people. Serena made no lesser choice than that, I know."

“Neither did you,” Sansa was quick to add in face of her tears. It was clear Arya had battled with this for some time. " _Arya_ ," she called her. Neither a command nor a request, yet when she faced her she did so sheepishly. "Do you believe you failed him?"

She looked away at once and refused to look back at her.

"You _did not_ fail him, sister. You spent years telling me he made his own choices. He built his own cage. We saw who she was. The North saw who she was. And we told him. He refused to believe it. There is enough guilt in this family. For far too long. You spent so many years trying to comfort me about his fate. I should have done the same for you," she regretted.

Arya chuckled bitterly. "Comfort you? I used you as a shield. You and Bran. You both commanded it, so I must obey. I released myself from the blame, with the decision. But when have I ever went along with an order I did not agree to? Till when can I deceive myself into thinking that I could not have asked you to reconsider, that my disobedience could not have swayed you? _No_. If I had wanted less for him to be punished I would have made it so. I wanted him on the Wall. I wanted him punished for the mother and daughter that burned to ash holding onto to one another. I wanted him to feel as desperate as they felt as they saw that dragon flying over them. I wanted to punish him for having to be convinced to put an end to her. I sentenced him just as much as you and Bran and Arianne. I was no less his jailer. And I do not regret it. Do you?"

Sansa shook her head. “He is Serena’s father and I suppose I do sometimes fear I failed a father in regard to his daughter and yet… We are Starks of Winterfell. It is not our task to sings careful songs about each other. To praise one another for the world to remember us by. We are not conceited Lannisters. Proud Baratheons. Or demented Targaryens. We are Starks, we look the truth in the face, and we move forward. We see our ancestors mistakes and we do better, you and I have chosen thus. We could have been honourable Starks or Tullys blinded by revenge -"

Arya gave a shriek laugh "And we were. For a time and then we chose differently. I abandoned revenge and Cersei with it. You chose duty over honour and became the Queen the North needed. We chose to learn by the truth and ignore the stories. Torrhen Stark. Bran, the builder. Lyanna. They are neither heroes nor villains they are people who made choices. I ask again, do you regret it?”

“I do not,” Sansa said solemnly.

Arya shrugged and cleaned her tears at last. "Then Serena won't either. For she is her mother's daughter. And my own dear niece. And we are Starks of Winterfell, that is what we are."

Sansa wanted to cry at the sight of him.

The Sansa that had sung of heroes and kings, that had pictured them golden and bright and unrelenting. The Sansa that had pictured the faces of every Winter King that ever was and looked into his eyes and saw them all at once – that had wanted to believe it _so much_. The Sansa who kneeled and begged and called him _Your Grace_ and said _please_.

The Sansa from her youth wanted to cry at the sight of her _once brother_ – her _once lover_ – her _once king_.

The white streaked hair, which once was nothing but black, the years have weighted more heavily on him than they have had on either of the Stark sisters. His eyes sunken and tired and a rather a lifeless tone of grey, were once were slight reflections of a colour she would never draw attention to.

Yet that was not the Sansa that entered the room now. She was neither frail nor gentle. She had been a mother for more years than she had been a maiden and she went quickly to his side, while Arya took his other. He seemed exhausted and feverish, as lean as she ever saw him, more so than in his youth. Sansa was reminded of how many deathbeds she had attended to. How many people she had seen die. How many people have left her.

He was eager to know of Serena, masked the sadness of her absence to the best of his ability and Sansa made the reason kinder than it truly was, spoke of a wanted babe that was soon to be and the dangers of riding atop a horse – he had suffered enough. Told him that she knew who her father was, that she was not ashamed.

She sat on the edge of his bed and easily took his hand. As warm as ever, made warmer still by the inexplicable fever that had taken what was once the greatest swordsman in Westeros to death’s doors. His skin burned in her hands.

"She is as bright as the winter sun. When she walks into a room everyone's eyes turn to her and she could charm even the most short sided of my bannermen. She looks very much like me - I have to say. A bit shorter," they all laughed, hungry for an excuse to release the darkness that was the room. "She has the grey eyes of the Starks and the auburn hair of the Tullys. Thick and curly hair like yours that she keeps in a beaded hairnet her husband gave her, I suspect she wears it so to look more serious.” She gave a small, hollow laugh. “She has my cheekbones and nose. She's very beautiful, more so than me. Always courteous. Always even tempered. Yet when she frowns she looks just like you, the same creases in the forehead." She smiled.

He nodded slowly, his head weighing him. “Lady Catelyn’s face. The same as you. All Tully then,” he asked in a soft tone.

“Yes, the same as us. A Tully through and through.” And wasn’t that true? _Family, duty, honour_. Her daughter had chosen Joanna, had chosen her family first and left the father she never knew to die in the same place where he once – so long ago – had come back to life. The place where he would burn away.

He smiled softly and Sansa tried her best to ignore the longing look in his eyes and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Have you put a sword in her hands, sister?” he asked with a chuckle to the person’s whose other hand he held.

Arya snorted. “My sister has forbidden me of doing so, but she has never shown much interest. Serena is her mother’s daughter. Argella is the one that took to the sword. But Serena is skilful with a dagger and a straight shot with her bow and arrow, should she ever need to lead a war."

"Will she?" his tone was concerned, and her heart ached with it.

"No. Not while I live, either way," she promised resolutely.

“Either of us,” Arya added soundly.

“Was it worth it? All the sacrifices that were made. All the sacrifices that _we_ made, were they worth it?” he asked, his words heavy and his voice tired, haunted eyes focused on something that wasn’t there.

But it was. There in the room. All around them. The three of them. And Bran, wherever Bran was, the stench of charcoal followed. Screams followed. Lifeless people and severed limbs followed. The colour of blood. It always followed. Impossible to scrub off. Always there, in the background only waiting for a drop of attention, for a moment of doubt.

Sansa looked to Arya, both sisters exchanging more in a look than words could.

And though her voice shook, she said the words solemnly, “For the North? Most days. For our children? _Always_.”

He smiled sadly. It tugged at her heart. “Did you ever imagine things could have been different?”

Not truly. She couldn’t afford to imagine pasts that never were. To picture beautiful memories that she would never truly hold in her heart to keep her grounded. She had to move forward. Everything she had ever done since Cersei died in front of her, since all the true masters of the game had ceased to play, was to _move forward_. She had believed with all her heart that if she stopped, if only for a moment, all the ghosts she carried, all that was done _to_ her and _by_ her, would consume her whole. So she had built glass gardens, made trade agreements with Essos, cultivated the greatest of friendships with Dorne, did everything she could to turn the Maidenfort into a haven. Raised her children. But looking at Jon now, she realized she had stopped craving other lives for quite some time, hadn’t dreamed for the longest of times.

Only once. Only with Bran. Had she bothered to truly look back. She remembered clearly what he had told her. His words had always haunted her, the only haunting that persisted such was his power, her little brother. In his brutal honesty, of someone who could not lie for kindness, he had branded things in her mind – _Rickon_. She was not like her brother in that aspect, refused to be.

“ _Of course_. You would have been my Lord Stark and we would have had a litter of children. I would have made your clothing, you would have looked just like father.” A proper wife would have. Sansa had never been a wife, not in truth. “They would have asked to sleep in our bed during thunderstorms and we would have pretended not to be delighted.”

Bran had told her none of these futures, but they were kinder. And dying people deserved kindness. She could not offer him any less than she had once offered Cersei Lannister. Both of them had given her her children, she would never forget such a gift.

“A boy named Robb and a girl who would look like Arya,” he offered hopefully, waiting patiently for her reaction, while he heard Arya laugh at his side, though it sounded like such a sad laugh. Sansa couldn’t dare look at her, for fear she would see tears.

“Yes,” she said, though she could not see them as she had once imagined them in her youth, she could only see Serena now. “You would teach them how to fight in the trainyard and how to be brave while you took them on hunts. Would have let them ride Ghost far too often, would have denied them nothing, specially not the girls.” He tried to laugh, though it seemed to hurt his throat.

“You would sing… Do you still sing Sansa? Your voice was so sweet when you sang. We could have been happy, together,” he whispered, and the tears were heavy on his voice.

“We could have Jon,” she agreed. “You have given me a beautiful daughter. She is a good woman, a kind girl. I raised her to be a good Queen. I am so thankful…”

He ignored her and grunted as he tried to move a little in his bed. “You will take Ghost with you, won’t you? His old age has made him as gentle as Lady was, he deserves a little rest with you at Winterfell,” he prompted.

Sansa nodded. “Of course. I’ll take care of him,” she promised him truthfully. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and took a deep breath. “Jon?”

He only hummed in return, his eyes half closed. “You did your duty by me, Jon. You have loved me well,” she told him and while part of her screamed at the words inside her heart. While part of her convulsed at old memories, of betrayals she still held in her heart. The other, more gentle part of her, thought of _Serena_. Of her happy, peaceful childhood, her never faltering joy and her grey eyes. Her father’s eyes. Arya’s eyes. Jon’s eyes. Her Stark eyes. And that part of her couldn’t dare but agree.

Jon shook his head and if tears ran down his face Sansa couldn’t be sure if they were hers or his. “You don’t mean that. You do not. But I thank you for saying it,” he told her, as he took her hand to his lips in a shadow of a kiss. “Tell I love her, will you? _Her_ , I have loved well.”

Sansa’s cheeks were stained in tears and she could not help the sob that shattered the silence of the room. He had loved Serena well. He had kept his distance and with that, her safety. He had never sent ravens or asked travellers who came for news. He had been utterly silent. He knew the dangers and he abided to them. In what he could, he had kept their daughter utterly safe, as a fatherless girl.

“ _You have_ ,” she managed to whisper, her voice collapsing under the weight of the tears she did not want to shed.

“We’ll stay with you now. Until the end,” it was Arya who promised, a forced smile on her face as she took his hand and held it. Jon becoming once again her beloved brother, the person she had once loved above all others.

“Do you promise?” he asked, as a child would, not wanting to fall asleep alone.

“We swear.”

“ _And now his watch is ended._ ”

They would take his body to Winterfell. Would lay him to rest on their crypts. Would have a statue made of a brave commander next to Lyanna Stark. Let the future generations decide what that meant.

"When I die, let me go the Tully way. I'll allow for the statue and all that you feel it is necessary but let my bones float away and see new things. I don't want to be there where I can't see the sun. Send me off to wherever mother went. Let them call me a Tully, just this once," Arya asked from atop her horse, her eyes trained forward. "Like they called you for most of your life."

Sansa nodded, though she did not think she would be alive to arrange it. She would pass the request along to Serena, who would do so most carefully for her beloved aunt.

His men had spoken of his bravery in his eulogy. Had assured both of them of his service and leadership. Told them kind tales and offered sincere words. Tales she would tell Serena, words she would keep to herself. Told them how he had inspired them, and if there was anything one might have said of Jon Snow was of how well he inspired people to fight for him. How compassionate he was towards the Free Folk and to any lost man that found his way to the Wall. They called him Lord Commander, but Sansa knew they wished to call him King. She didn’t mind it. She was happy to know he had found purpose here. He had been a King to some once, something that was hard to forget. Jon Snow would always be hard to forget.

_Sansa was a girl no more._

She was Ned Stark's trueborn daughter, though she found little meaning in it – and it did pain her to realize it, but there was honesty in saying that she barely knew the man. Could count with her fingers the amount of conversations, just between them, that they had had. Honour meant so little to her, but in a way so it did to him. He had kept to his dead, wilful sister even when it meant he had to lie to his King, to his wife, to his children, to put them in harm’s way. Had kept to his drunk beloved King even when honour demanded otherwise, even when it meant to kill a gift from the old gods, when it mean to ruin _her_. His honour was conditional to the people he loved best, and she, unfortunately, was not high among them.

Perhaps in his death, when there was no one else but her to keep. She was ashamed she held no shame in it, but while Arya had been built by his love and kept by his memories, while Jon had made himself in Ned Stark's image, forsake Targaryen for Stark in his honour, Sansa had no fond memories, no lessons held together by him, that weren't about how winter was coming. How the pack survived, when in truth it didn't. Bran had been alone. Arya had been alone. Sansa had been alone. They didn't survive because of the pack, sometimes they survived in spite of it. And winter... Winter had been surely coming but he had prepared them for none of it. She wondered if his name would be forgotten in history, like so many of the Ladies of Winterfell had. Mayhap he would be remembered as their sire. The father of Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North. Arya Stark, the hero of Dawn. Bran Stark, the Raven King. Perhaps even King Robert's Hand, he loved him so much, he wouldn't have minded terribly.

_She was never a wife._

She was Catelyn Tully's daughter, a daughter of rivers. She had been taught to serve. To do her duty. To be a wife and a mother. To keep to her Lord husband, his hearth and hall. She had killed both her husbands with somewhat glee, she couldn't say she had followed her mother's lessons, couldn't deny the possibility that her mother might have little to be proud of. She bowed to no man, no husband, or brother, or king, and her duty wasn't to bend to them. She bended for the North though. The home she had been raised to someday leave. The home that one day would belong to her brother, to his wife. She was mistress and Queen here. Her voice was the loudest even when she whispered, such an unseemly pride she bore because of it. Yet there was joy to be had in power. Security submission did not offer. Being a ruling woman was no more dangerous than being married to her master, no, it was much safer the serve the North than to serve a husband. More freeing too. Her mother wouldn't have approved, but she had lived without that kind of choice, it would have been foolish to even consider it.

She must have hated Cersei, her Lady mother, for the crimes she imagined her committing, she wondered if she would hate her too, for what she had done for power, for safety, for what she had done for Cersei Lannister. Her mother had freed the Kingslayer once, faced the wrath of the North for a pledge to get her girls back. She loved her for it when she knew. That her mother had risked so much for her girls when no one else would. Yet a voice in her mind, the most retched voice, the one that was built into her, by experience and mistakes and heartbreak, the player that would never cease inside her, that continually kept her alive, told her of Rickon, her babe, dead in Winterfell. Bran, her darling, favoured boy, dead in Winterfell where she had left them. Robb, her heir, lost to another woman, to a war that would make him a man and distrustful of his mother, like all men became when they found themselves more powerful. She and Arya were what she had left, but she had _wanted_ them. She had _fought_ for them and even if they were not her favourite children, regardless of reason, she had risked for them, like no one else had or ever would. Sansa was dutiful because she was a Tully, because duty had been built into her by her mother, as strong – stronger – than the wretched voice Petyr had helped stich into her mind. She was a daughter of the trident, as much – some days more – than she was a daughter of winter. Mother would have been proud of the security having Joanna provided to the Riverlands, for she had never stopped being a Tully of Riverrun, she would have been proud she had kept to her family, _always_.

_She was more than a queen._

She had been Cersei Lannister many times before. She had been her when she bedded her brother. She was her every time she put a lord in his place. Yet she knew it the moment she had left Winterfell with Joanna and arrived at Casterly Rock, those eager faces looking for a crack. She would never be _just_ a Queen. She had power of her own, that much was true, more than Cersei ever had, but she knew she would put it all at risk for her children. She knew that if someone harmed Joanna, in the way Sansa had been harmed by men, she would tear the West apart and destroy her precious North for the war effort, if that was what it took to get her girl back. She would rage a war that would make the War of the Five Kings look like child's play. She would have neared being compared to Tywin Lannister if it got her her girl back. That was the Catelyn inside of her, her mother's blood that put her family first, her children.

It was Cersei’s ghost as well. Cersei who had spent months training her to be someone who she could trust her daughter upon, her last true play. Hoping she was enough like her so she would be strong enough to take her from the West, to keep her and protect her, but different enough so she could love her, in a way Cersei had been incapable of truly loving. Cersei had trusted no one, but she had trusted her. With all her might she had trusted her and through Sansa she had succeeded. Through Sansa, she would always be remembered as a Queen-Mother. _Hers_. Not Joanna’s, for no one would dare argue it was Sansa’s voice when she spoke. Through Sansa she would have been a mother of a line of queens.

Joanna was her precious girl. Her darling. She had been raised so very carefully to ensure of what she would become, that she had become more like Sansa than Serena was. Serena was Sansa when she was young, full of music and hope. _Joyful._ Joanna was Sansa as she was now, her fear had been built into her. Cersei's fear and Sansa's. Joanna was charming like Cersei could be when she put her mind to it, and she was dutiful like Sansa. She was beautiful like Cersei, but carried her mother with her, her courtesy was her armour and her spear. She was so very mindful of her duty, the way she bit her tongue to keep the Cersei in, the impulsiveness that was all Cersei and Jaime, all Lannister, to control her temper like Sansa had taught her.

She was not her daughter in truth, but Sansa would raze kingdoms for her without doubt, or indecision. She had never done anything wrong in her life, her darling girl – her _pride_. Joanna sought her approval the way Cersei had sought Tywin’s; the way Sansa had sought everyone's. She wanted wholeheartedly to be her trueborn daughter and it broke her heart, so Sansa had given her more love, for she could see it. It had been understandable of Serena to think Sansa had loved her more.

Serena was young and sweet, innocent like she had been. Sansa had trained it out of her, in a way she never had to with Joanna. But Serena had learned, eagerly had wanted to be like Joanna, like the older sister she loved so much, looked up to so dearly. Joanna had swallowed that praise hungrily. Took patience to teach her the little things Sansa had taught her already, cultivated her love and admiration like a flower. And it had bloomed most wonderfully. Sansa could see it now and breathed deeply with the knowledge that if she died this day they would care for one another just as well as she cared for them. Her northern heir was loyal to her bones. Serena was her _joy_. Court came so very easy to her, she charmed a room just like Margaery Tyrell had done in her time and was far more kind than the Rose of Highgarden had ever been. She was built to be a Queen, well-loved by her people, who were hungry for her praise. Loved by her husband who saw no one above her. She too would be a Queen who lasted.

Sansa had built a legacy through her children. Cersei's children had been a source of her power. Sansa's were only a reflection of hers. She had been Queen for twenty years. She had been a Queen who _lasted,_ and she laughed heartily at the knowledge that a _stupid little girl, with stupid dreams_ , had won the Game of Thrones.

" _Mother?”_ Serena called to her from where her household stood waiting to greet her in the courtyard. “Come meet your grandson. Come meet _Rickon_." Her heart caught in her throat.

Sansa Stark, first of her name, the Queen in the North, the Lady of Winterfell, Protector of the Maidenfort. Mother to Joanna Lannister and Serena Stark, grandmother to Gerold and Lelia Lannister, and Rickon Stark was _radiant_ with joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very nervous about posting this chapter. I have written and rewritten this for a whole month, wanting to give the best ending to a fic that made me realize I could actually write and share my love of these characters with other people.
> 
> I truly did the best I could and I’m sorry if I have disappointed anyone. It was never my intention to.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been with me and commented, you have given me so much strength to write this and I couldn’t have without your support.
> 
> If you want to talk about this fic or ask for anything about Joanna, Serena or Argella, you’re welcome to at https://sad-hippie.tumblr.com/
> 
> I’m almost finished with the epilogue, so I swear I won’t take a month to upload, but in my defence this was my longest chapter to date. I just have to revise it and will add it next week. For all intents and purposes this is the actual ending. Thank you so much for reading this and for all your kindness. I truly hope you’ve liked it.


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A true Ruler, careful and prepared for Winter. Patient for Spring and never too comfortable in Summertime.

_There were many names Sansa Stark was called over her long life. Traitor’s daughter. Lady Lannister. Alayne Stone. Lady of Winterfell. Better remembered are the names she received over her long reign as Queen in the North._

_Early Life_

Born in 286 A.C. in Winterfell it was recorded that the bells rang all day long to announce the birth of the one-day Queen. If one believed in prophecy, they would say that it was very telling that she was the only one of the Stark children to have been given such a welcome onto the world.

The daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn Tully, with her auburn hair, vivid-blue eyes and high cheekbones, Sansa Stark lived a peaceful childhood at Winterfell. She was raised in the faith of the Seven by her mother, who oversaw her education. The most southern of Catelyn Tully’s children, she knew since youth she was bound to marry a southern Lord, the memories of Lyanna Stark still fresh in the memories of all the Realm, rebellious Stark daughters were a nightmare none wanted to repeat again.

Soon enough, her mother and septa’s efforts would be rewarded, Lady Sansa was described in Maester Luwin’s writings as being “ _a lady at three_ ”, she was tutored in traditional feminine activities. Lady Sansa was highly gifted in music, poetry and some of her skilful embroidery has lasted to our days and can be seen in the museum of Winterfell. Her gifts and recognized beauty would catch the eye of King Robert Baratheon, who would offer a betrothal to the Crown Prince, Joffrey Baratheon. She would travel to Kings Landing, with her sister and father, Robert’s new Hand, to begin her training as Queen-to-be under Cersei Lannister.

It wasn’t long before her Baratheon Prince had Eddard Stark executed for conspiracy against advice from the Queen-Mother, following the death of Robert Baratheon on a wild boar hunt, many believing to have been a plot by the Queen-Mother herself. It was in Kingslanding, her cage for many years, where she made acquaintances that would follow and shape her throughout her life. None of such importance as Queen Cersei of the House of Lannister, who both served as queen consort, regent and reigning during her almost 30 years in the Red Keep. Known as the Lioness of Kingslanding and responsible for the tragedy that befell the Great Sept of Baelor, Queen Cersei would shape Sansa Stark’s life for years to come – from Lady to Queen.

Lady Sansa Stark would be a hostage to the crown for many years during the War of the Five Kings. Tormented by King Joffrey, publicly beaten and undressed by the Kingsguard at his orders for his every defeat against the Northern Rebellion for Independence. King Robert himself, had been known to beat Queen Cersei publicly, an inheritance he left his son. It would be clear that these beatings were not endorsed by the Queen, for it is recorded King Joffrey would only dare to order them when she was away from court.

Her own brother, Robb Stark, would refuse to trade her for Jaime Lannister, who was briefly his hostage. Once her betrothal to King Joffrey was broken, she would be forcefully married to the Lannister Imp in preparation for the Red Wedding, after which she would become the heir to the North.

_Escape from Kingslanding_

It was in Kingslanding she would know Petyr Baelish, both her tutor and captor, the first man she would sentence to die for the crimes against herself and her house. It was during the commotion following the poisoning of Joffrey Baratheon at his wedding that he would be able to slip the Lady Sansa from the capital, a crime for which Tyrion Lannister and herself, as his wife, would be persecuted for.

Indeed, we now know it was Baelish alongside Lady Olenna Tyrell, that orchestrated the murder of Joffrey Baratheon, though for vastly different reasons. He was known to have participated in Jon Arryn’s murder and later the death of his wife, Lady Lysa Tully and countless others for his ambition on his path to power.

Lady Sansa, under de disguise of Alayne Stone, Baelish’s natural daughter, served as the _de facto_ Lady of the Eyrie for a time. It is unknown what led to Lady Sansa’s and Petyr Baelish brief separation, many books on her life are particularly scarce in that respect, even Maester Creylen’s writings of her life, endorsed by the Queen herself seem purposefully vague.

What is known is that alongside her bastard brother, Jon Snow, she would rally Northern Houses and the Knights of the Vale, to take back Winterfell from unnamed traitors that had kill her youngest brother, Rickon Stark. Rightfully taking her place as Lady of Winterfell, after her victory in battle. However, it would be her bastard brother, for unclear reasons, who was crowned King in the North.

_Jon Snow’s reign_

Indeed, the story of Jon Snow, the bastard of Winterfell, closely connected to our Queen's, is less clear.

Jon Snow, King in the North, against all advice, would bend the knee to the Meerenese Queen, claimant to the Iron Throne, Daenerys Targaryen, the brutal conqueror. Known in Westeros at the time for the Second Field of Fire, where she would burn all of winter’s provisions for the Realm along with defeated Lannister troops.

Even in a precarious position, the Lady of Winterfell would remain unbent in accordance to Northern will and would only feed and clothe the foreign armies for the assistance the Targaryen provided against their common enemy in the War for the Dawn. Lady Stark would allow Jon Snow – despite his betrayal and no doubt due to his knowledge of the threat – to lead her Northern armies during the Long Night. A battle which the North would win.

Jon Snow with few Northern men still loyal to him would follow the Mad Queen to Kingslanding where she reigned fire amongst both civilians and armies alike, in the image of her forefathers – _the Massacre of Kingslanding_. A deed so monstrous, her own lover would be forced to execute her for it.

Sources diverge over the assessment of his character. Brave warrior. Failed King. Turncloak. Oathbreaker. Lord Crow. Commander of the Night’s Watch, where he would serve the rest of his life after his exile over the support of Daenerys Targaryen, the Mad Queen. He was known for his bravery, if not for his loyalty. Nevertheless one cannot dispute that the acceptance of the Crown of Winter, following the Battle for Winterfell won by the Knights of the Vale at the call of the then Lady Stark, was a clear breech of inheritance laws, not even explained by the laws in place, the right of blood and conquest. His coronation can be considered neither lawful nor strategic – nothing but a clear show of the prejudice Sansa Stark had suffered throughout her life for being a woman.

After his years in exile, he was buried in Winterfell’s crypts, next to Lady Lyanna, a decision that still creates many theories in historians minds, who claim it to be a decision by the Queen for both of them having chosen Targaryen over Stark, while novelists seem to have taken most kindly to the theory that he was indeed her bastard son with Rhaegar Targaryen. Neither have conclusive evidence.

_Ascension_

Queen Sansa Stark, elected by her lords as such after championing for Northern freedom to enemies and family alike, would become the first _Queen of Winter_ and most beloved figure of Northern Monarchy for the centuries to follow and still to our days.

Known as _Good Queen Sansa_ , drafting a long-standing alliance with Dorne, she was responsible for erecting glass gardens all throughout her lands, that would be instrumental in coming winters, long after her death. Most notably through an inheritance of unknown origin, she transformed the Maidenfort, her own personal property, into a place of learning for midwives and later on, by the actions of her daughter, Serena Stark, and grandson Rickon Stark and his Queen, would become the first citadel for women, an achievement far beyond her time and a tremendous step in the Westeros’ History of Women, for which today she is still commended for. Her statue still standing on the campus grounds.

Indeed, the _Mother of the North_ , as she too was called, followed Dorne in its inheritance laws, in an effort to ensure firstborn daughters would inherit above sons. And in a revolutionary step, decreed all bastards born in the North would take their mother’s name, no doubt a decision shaped by her time in the Vale hiding under a bastard alias and her own family history, a decision that would also free her after her forced marriage with Tyrion Lannister, the known traitor and kinslayer, from having to endure any more husbands that might threaten her reign.

_Cersei Lannister_

Many support that this decision was shaped by her years with Cersei Lannister, a strong ruler in her own right, she had to endure a violent marriage, disregarded by her father for being a woman, forced to contend with less capable men as both Hands and Regents for her children, called bastards by many in an effort to diminish her power, though no evidence of this was ever found. Only achieving her full potential after all her male relationships having died, been exiled or deserted her.

It might be said that had Sansa Stark not known Cersei Lannister she might have never considered herself fit for Queenship. The North, for its thousands of years, was never ruled by a Queen. She, herself, had been taught to serve and she had never met a woman who had chosen differently. Cersei Lannister was indeed such a woman. A ruler, not a conqueror, by no means a gentle woman, she was ambitious with a steady hand holding her crown in place. Regarded today as Tywin Lannister’s true heir, she would go on to destroy her enemies one by one, her allies few and fair weathered, she survived unimaginable trials and only the ruthlessness of Daenerys Targaryen was able to defeat all her gifts at statecraft and warcraft, the Massacre of Kingslanding marked the end of her rule and of the Seven Kingdoms.

It was during her imprisonment that once again, the two women reunited. There are no records of the conversations shared during Queen Cersei’s confinement in Riverrun, the place where treaties that lasted for centuries were made. What we do know is that Sansa Stark would leave those rooms with the fatherless babe of the Queen on her arms and no one would dare refute her claim on Joanna Lannister. Why, we cannot tell. Many have called them enemies, many believe them still as allies of a sort, two women born to rule and united in their respect of one another. One cannot forget that many years of Sansa Stark’s childhood were spent in the presence of the Lioness, it wouldn’t be farfetched to suppose some familiar feelings might have grown between the two after so many years of wars and death, they might have been to each other all that remained of another time. Nothing would support this more than the care with which Sansa Stark raised Joanna Lannister.

_Legacy_

Many books about the life of Sansa Stark have survived to our days. She appeared to be a woman who inspired many maesters to take up their quill. None most notably as the series of books of Maester Creylen " _Songs of Chaos_ ", who both documented her rise to power, from pawn, to kingmaker, to Queen, as well as the first years of Lady Lannister’s rule.

The good relationship between Sansa Stark and Joanna Lannister as written, have been disputed over the years. Yet the fact remains that Master Creylen maintained service between Casterly Rock and Winterfell during the writings of his manuscripts, something impossible to imagine should the women bear ill-will towards one another once after her years in Winterfell.

All in all, nothing proved so poignantly Joanna Lannister’s fondness of her adoptive mother, as the fact that when the Lady Joanna gave birth to her third child, indeed she named her Sansa Lannister, who would come to marry Lord Hoster Tully and be the Lady of Riverrun, as Queen Sansa’s great grandmother, of the same name, once was. Though letters have been discovered from the Queen in the North that showed us she might have disapproved of this choice, this appears to have been out of concern for the reaction of the West, rather than personal dislike. It is also known that the midwives that delivered all of Lady Joanna's children were sent by the Queen of the North herself, though she could not leave the North to attend to each and every one of the births.

One thing remained most prevalent of all for this writer: it was reported by multiple less biased sources, from the West that when the Queen in the North perished, Maester Creylen having died many years before, that the bells in Casterly Rock rang for three days and that the keep went into deep mourning for a whole month. Many reported still that the Lady Joanna wore nothing but black for a whole year, while her adoptive sister, Serena Stark would wear it for the same time, a show of unity if nothing more. Though these can be clear evidence of the close relationship the two shared and the grief that would never leave the sisters for the loss of their brilliant mother. Indeed we can see the letters, displayed at the museum of Winterfell of the Lady of the Rock to the Queen in the North, codes that took years to uncover, that only tell us of the love and care these two shared from one another.

No matter the relationship the two might have shared in her adulthood, there is no doubt Joanna Lannister was carefully raised by the Queen. She was called the _lion cub of Sansa Stark_ for most of her life and if she found it insulting never did she show signs of it. It is told Northern songs were regularly sung in Casterly's halls, none other as much as the _Red Queen of Wolves_ , and _the Bride of Winter_ , songs written about Sansa Stark. All signs point to a loving relationship between the two women, a true familiar relationship, forged by love, even if it might have begun with duty towards her mentor, since no amount of ambition could explain why Sansa Stark might have supported the West for so many years, with little profit except the peace it provided the Riverlands, one of her closest allies and her mother’s childhood home.

Serena Stark, Sansa Stark’s heir to the North, was a reported great beauty like her mother, with an equal sharp mind. She would continue her mother’s efforts with the Maidenfort, opening their borders to any southern women who wished to pursue their education there. She was a patron of the arts, and many bards made their way to Winterfell to be under her protection. She has been attributed the foundation of three great cities to harbour the great growth in population experienced in the North due to her mother’s steady construction of glass gardens and resilient crops. Alongside her Hand and cousin, Argella Stark, she would also endorse many trade agreements with cities along the Sunset Sea which would be fundamental for Northern prosperity.

The identity of Serena Stark’s father was never known. Although it was clear it was her decision to have only one biological child, since the names of some of her lovers, years after the birth of Serena are known. To this day many historians seek to uncover the mystery, having requested DNA samples that the descendants of Serena Stark have always refused to consider. Something that will undoubtedly remain one of history’s greatest secrets.

Serena had a loving marriage with Lord Robar Royce that produced five living children, Rickon, Catelyn, Yohn, Jocelyn and Alys Stark. Catelyn Stark would go on to marry Lord Gerold Lannister, succeeding her Aunt as the Lady Lannister. Yohn Stark would marry Lady Donella Manderly, becoming her consort. Jocelyn Stark would remain unmarried and serve as her brother’s Hand through his reign and later the beginning of her niece’s. And little Alys, who would go on to marry Lord Jasper Arryn, becoming the Lady of the Vale.

The heir to the North, Rickon Stark would be married to Lelia Lannister, a few years his senior, a reputed beauty and sought out bride, at the request of his grandmother whom he loved so dearly that his first child, a daughter as well, was named Sansa Stark, becoming the second of her name, Queen in the North. They had a true companionship in their marriage, Queen Lelia was given the freedom to create many orphanages across the North and she would become a pupil herself at the Maidenfort and would one day teach there as well. King Rickon, a mirror of his namesake would establish a friendly relationship with the Free Folk and was known for having written songs and poems as well, no doubt fruit of his mother’s and grandmother’s education.

_Death_

In an age where Kings were unprepared for ruling, ambitious for power, uncaring of the blood they would spill, when they were nothing more than conquerors, Sansa Stark would rise not as a warrior, but as Maester Creylen would put it “ _a true Ruler, careful and prepared for Winter. Patient for Spring and never too comfortable in Summertime_ ” a Queen who lasted, rather than one that collapsed under the weight of responsibility and duty. She was loved by the North and mourned in her death throughout Westeros, her name never to be forgotten in history.

Which isn't to say her reign wasn't questioned. Herself an unwed Queen, she was never able to truly rest upon her throne, something she had learned very well from Cersei Lannister. Still she persevered – who would dare go against such a beloved Queen by her people, such an admired mistress by her lords. Who might have had the courage and strength to threaten someone so revered, with such confidence in her step, yet temperate in her power? There were surely those who tried and failed, their names so meaningless we have no record of them. Only the name Sansa Stark remains.

And as she ingrained her name in the stones of history, so it became much easier for her daughters to walk her path. Through Sansa Stark a line of Queens was able walk, for she paved the way only walked before by Cersei Lannister, in which regard we can truly say – her mentor, in whom some might say her legacy lived on.

After the death of Sansa Stark, there was a true lack of great families without a grandchild of hers in their midst. Either by Joanna Lannister’s children, or Serena Stark’s, her grandchildren would go on to spread her legacy. A Northern Dynasty who knew its mother in Sansa Stark.

Sansa Stark’s remains can be found in the crypts of Winterfell, under the most magnificent marble statue, that to this day is still viewed as one of the North’s most important pieces of art. She is sided by a statue of her sister, Arya Stark, _the Hero of Dawn_ , though her body is not found there, having she preferred the Tully customs of burial, and Brandon Stark, _the Raven King_ , who before his death asked to be buried near his sisters.

Yet, legend tells us that if one would like to see the remains of Sansa Stark, they might too consider visiting Lady Joanna Lannister’s tomb. For it is told that she would ask her daughter, that once her body turned to bones, that half of them would be sent to Casterly Rock to her sister, so that the two might always share part of her.

_Excerpt from “ The life and legacy of Queen Sansa I of the North”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your support, for your words most of all. Thank you for having followed this fic and I hope you have liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be in great deal about Sansa and Cersei’s relationship and very much Sansa-centric. There will be further flashbacks of their conversations during her pregnancy in other chapters. While I have no doubt of Cersei’s villainy, she is a very interesting character who I can’t seem to let go of. I understand some of you will find her a little OOC, but I’m writing from a woman who knows there is no escape and very little options, how I think she might act. But if you don’t like her at all I recommend you don’t continue reading.
> 
> Jon will show up a few chapters down the road. My other fic “Let no man write your epitaph”, while not necessary to understand this, would give light to where Sansa and Jon are at, at this point in their relationship.
> 
> I’ll add more tags as I go, but I already tagged most of the relevant characters. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, English is not my language, please forgive any bumps in the road.
> 
> My tumblr is https://sad-hippie.tumblr.com/ if there are request, or I don't know, if you wanna chat about fanfiction.
> 
> (The title is from Paradise Lost)


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